Kingmaker: Lures of Majesty

Game Session 35
Game Dates: Erastus (July) 2nd, Third Year of Svenheim

A terrible breeze blows a gas cloud from the noxious lake as a swarm of biting mosquitoes harasses the adventurers. Braving the environment they push on to investigate the old fortress more.

Nessa uses a spell to teleport the entire party to the top entrance of the tower. Going inside there is a long dark tunnel awaiting. Nessa makes herself invisible and flies up sixty feet and comes a stone that is obscured by vines. She breathes her draconic fire and burns away the vines revealing another enterance. Nessa sends down a rope for the party to climb up. E

Everyone makes it up safely except for Chris, who falls off the rope and gets a bad whiff of the nasty noxious gasses coming from the lake. He tries again and falls once more, everyone laughs at his misfortune. On the third attempt third he succeeds.

Nessa searches for traps a door ahead and finds nothing but she does realize that the door is somehow magically locked. Hailex discovers that arcane lock was cast on the door and Dash casts knock on the door, opening it with magic. Nessa attempts to open the door, but she fails. Hailex attempts to open the door and also fails. After a few more tries, Nessa opens the door. The door leads into a long slanted passage way and Nessa looks around, but finds nothing.

The party can clearly see something at the end of the corridor, a door perhaps. Walking to the end of the hallway the party comes to a bronze door. Caleesee cast detect magic on the door and finds that the walls and the door are magical. The walls and the door are protected against low levels of spells like disintegration and erosion. The corridor is protected against teleporting magics. Caleesee understands that the walls are covered in an ancient dialect of an ancient cyclops empire.

Alderick tries to pull the door open with Dash and Chris assisting him. He succeeds and when the door opens they see a small room with a noxious smell inside. Hailex finds a secret door and because the room is making him sick he steps out to figure out where the door is located. Next he walks into the room holding his breath, hits a hidden button to open the secret door and leaves again.

Suddenly a fire ball bursts out from the opened secret door and explodes! The magical fire severely burns Nessa, Alderick and Hailex. Chris hears another guy on the other side of the secret door and alerts everyone. Hailex can see that the guy has made seven images of himself, a defensive spell he realizes.

Another fire ball comes out of the door, causing Hailex and Dash to hit the ground badly burned. Caleesee heals the party, saving many from suffering a painful death.

Alderick runs forwards and casts silence into the hallway beyond the secret door. Inside he sees a dread zombie. he recognizes the zombie as Cephal Larentez, the magister of Varnhold.

Nessa teleports herself and Sven behind the creature. Sven swings his axe and makes one of the false images disappear. The creature moves out of the range of the silence spell but not before Sven disrupts yet another mirror image.

Game Session 34
Game Dates: Sarenith (June) 30 – Erastus (July) 1st, Third Year of Svenheim

It begins to pour rain as the party sets up camp in a nearby cave. Hailex receives a message by spell from Svenheim that Tallik is conspiring against the king and pulls Sven aside to speak with him. Tallik is Sven’s nephew whom has been accompanying the Council, he is an accomplished war leader and warrior.

The next day, the party continues to climb the stone staircase in The Valley of the Slain. Coming down the staircase, several feet away the party encounter a man who is dressed in all red accompanied by two guards.

“Halt! Lower your weapons.” Sven says.

“ My name is Alderick, we need to speak with the king in private.” the man in all red says.

Hailex casts hold person on Tallik and keeps a eye on him. Caleesee, Hailex and Sven approach the men. They hand him an official scroll from Svenheim’s guards and it says that the Alderick is here to help and that we should trust him. Alderick places his hand on the shoulders of the Council and casts sanctuary on each them.

Tallik realizes that he is not able to move and Hailex tells him “We will not tolerate someone conspiring against the king! You will be sentenced to death!”. Tallik, in rage, breaks the enchantment on him and charges at the king, Sven. Nessa tries to stop him, but fails. Tallik is unable to strike Sven because of the sanctuary spell. Sven is unable to bring his weapons against his nephew. Alderick casts a spell to grow nine feet and grabs Tallik, capturing him. Sven refuses to have his nephew killed and tries to talk to him but it is evident that Tallik has a grudge against Sven. Tallik says he hates Sven for not fighting with his people and further accuses him of abandoning his people while his family members get killed in battle. Tallik is tied to the horse and send him back to Svenheim with the guards to be imprisoned.

The party continues onward with Alderick taking tallik’s place. They reache a gap in the mountains where the stairs do not go across. Hailex gets across and he throws a rope to get the rest of the party across. The party gets safely to the other side but Hailex spots a roc flying up above and hides behind a boulder.

“Everyone get down!!!! There are rocs over head!!!”, Hailex warns everyone!

Suddenly a dragon flies down and blast the rocs with lightening setting them both on fire. Nessa puts a sphere of invisibility around the party and Alderick casts a protection spell on everyone. Dispite the rocs attempt to flee the dragon blasts the rocs out of the sky with another bold of lightening before flying away.

Traveling on up the stairs, the party comes to a very dark river that they are unable to see through. The stairs end when they get to the lake of the same dark water. In the middle of the river, there is a limestone tower on an island.

Sven searches the area and spots in the side of the tower there is a hole and there is a hole 60 feet up covered in vines.

Caleesee casts detect magic on the water and it does not appear to be magical. Hiding behind a wall behind the lake, the party spots a pair of blue dragons. Hailex can tell that they are actually wyverns and that knows that they are poisonous. The beasts fly over the party attacking Chris and Caleesee. They both get snatched up off the ground and get carried fifty feet up in the air. Caleesee hits the dragon with inflict critical wounds before she is dropped. Right before she hits the ground Hailex casts feather fall on her saving her. Chris casts lightening bolt causing the dragon that was once holding on to Caleesee to explode. The surviving wyvern flees the area.

Game Dates: Calistri (Feb) 8, Second Year of Svenheim – Sarenith (June) 30, Third Year of Svenheim

(Due to Daisy’s hard drive crash many logs were lost. Here is a brief summary of what was lost from notes on my game calendar and kingdom building ledger.)

In the Second Year of Svenheim:

Calistri (Feb)

On the 6th, The leadership Council returned to Svenheim and spend the entire month on Council business as they wait out the worst of the winter.

A town hall was built in Svenheim to serve the citizens and provide civic space for functions. Baron Sven allowed a puppet theater to be created in the town hall in an attempt to alleviate the citizenry from insisting that a theater be built for entertainment. Needless to say, the puppet theater did little to deflect such criticism.

A blizzard fell upon The Greenbelt snowing in Svenheim and the surrounding lands causing some hardships for citizens.

In the Third Year of Svenheim:

Pharast (March)

The Kingdom of Svenheim enters it’s third year.

General Kruznic asks the Leadership Council if we can find a way to help our ally Varnhold negotiate a peace with the Nomen Centaurs. A letter is sent to Varnhold baron Maegar Varn and his reply says that the situation with the centaurs are quiet right now and he wishes it to stay that way for now. Maegar also invites the Council to Varnhold for the Erastil festival.

On the 11th, the Svenheim Council attends the Varnhold festival. High Diplomat Caleesse wins the fishing and logging competitions! That evening the Council meets with Baron Maegar Varn and an alliance is struck between the two fledgling nations. To tie the two nations together forever it is agreed that Baron Sven will marry one of his newborn sons to Baron Varn’s newborn daughter when they both come of age. The next day the Council returns to Svenheim.

On the 15th, reports that the kobold mines were attacked by morlocks. Knowing that the morlocks come from the recently discovered dwarven ruins General Kruznic leads Svenheim’s small standing army to the ruins to stop the morlock raids. Kruznic finds the morlocks are too large in number to fight but is able to trap them underground in the ruins by disabling the elevator they use to come to the surface. The morlock raids stop as they are trapped.

On the 20th, the Council takes advantage of spring weather to explore the lands east of Lake Tuskwater.

On the 23rd, they find an abandoned bridge across the Shirke River. Two days later they discover a giant turtle and dispatch it. A couple of more days later and they return to the mud pits and kill the dangerous tree creature there.

On the 30th, the council finds an evil creature, a lucretia, and kill it before returning to Svenheim to conduct Council meetings.

An area of plains in the northern Greenbelt is claimed for Svenheim and farmlands are given out to settlers to grow crops.

Gozran (April)

The Council attends to kingdom business and personal matters.

Another area of plains in the northern Greenbelt is claimed for Svenheim and farmlands are given out to settlers to grow crops.

Roads and bridges are built to content the kobold citizen’s mine lair to Svenheim roads.

Baron Sven carries out his promise to Loy Rezbin and grants him the material and charter to build Tantzleford. Houses are built as the new hamlet is founded along the Skunk River.

Desnus (May)

The Council attends to kingdom business and personal matters.

Another area of plains in the northern Greenbelt is claimed for Svenheim where roads are built and farmlands are given out to settlers to grow crops.

The Svenheim economy continues to grow.

Adventurers arrive in Svenheim and kill orcs that were poised to cause problems for the kingdom. As a reward the Council pays the adventurers 4000 gold for their heroism.

Sarenith (June)

During the first week the Svenheim Council conducts monthly meetings for kingdom business.

The northeastern tip of the Narlmarches is claimed for the kingdom where rare moon radishes grow wild.

The kingdom economy continues to perform well.

On the 8th, Brevoy sends message to Svenheim Council that the Barony of Varnhold has gone silent, no contact for over a week. Worried about their ally the Council makes plan to travel to Varnhold city in the morning.

On the 11th, the Council finds Varnhold City and the surrounding lands devoid of human population. Confused Varnholders found further out say they do not know what happened and blame everything from magic, fae to centaurs. Inside the city it found disturbingly quiet, as if everyone just suddenly got up and left over a week ago. The Council found that evil fae called spriggans inhabited parts of the city. Many battles were fought against the evil creatures and when the Council liberated Varnhold Garrison from the spriggans General Kruznic fell in battle. Baron Sven ordered that the Council return the body of the general to Svenheim immediately for proper burial of Svenheim’s hero.

On the 15th, General Kruznic is buried in Svneheim’s Hero’s Rest Graveyard as the kingdom mourns the lost of a founder and hero.

On the 19th, through heavy rains, the Council returns to Varnhold City to continue the investigation. An elven wizard accompanying the Council, Dash, is killed by a giant murder of crows. The mystery only deepens as vague clues are found.

On the 21st, the Council questions more surviving Varnholders to the north but find no new clues.

On the 24th, the Council seeks out the Nomen Centaurs in the Dunsward and are taken to their camp and leader. Councilor Haylex convinces the centaurs that Svenheim and the centaurs can live in peace. Their leader, Silverfire, asks the Council to rescue her daughter whom is missing, last seen around The Valley of the Slain to the southwest. The Council agrees to help and find her.

On the 25th, as the Council travels to the Valley of the Slain they come across the undead skeleton of a giant linnorm dragon. During the intense battle Warden Garen is slain. His body will later be returned to Svenheim and Garen is reincarnated into a kobold.

On the 29th, the Council explores the Valley of the Slain where they are attacked by numerous undead cyclops that try to eat their brains. After a couple of days they climb giant stairs up to an area where an old keep is located.

Having returned from adventuring the Council sets to meet and handle Barony business. Baron Sven is happy to see that Frostfang Castle is now completed. The baron and baroness move in and has rooms set aside for any of the Council. General Kruznic moves his army HQ there and the standing army uses it as a base until a garrison is built. The castle is cramped with soldiers but everyone makes do.

A man approaches the guards that stand outside Frostfang Castle.

The huge barbarian of a man yells out, " I demand to see your king! Tell him to get him to get his coward self down here!"

“You are speaking about our king! Watch your mouth”, one of the guards responds.

“Okay, well I will go try to find the coward myself then.” the rude man says trying to push his way through the guards.

One of the guards takes his shield and knocks the man back. The big man punches the guard back sending him to the ground. Two guards from on the top of the castle wall shot him with a few arrows. The huge man falls to the ground and surrenders rather hurt anyone and the guards pick the wounded man up to drag him to the dungeon.

Councilor Hailex hears of what happened and goes down to the dungeon to check on the matter.

The huge prisoner sees the councilor there and boasts, “Is this how you treat a guest of Svenhiem?!!! You know, the king is going to be pretty pissed when he finds out……”

“How long has he been here???”, Hailex whispers to one of the guards. “Since sunrise.” the guard answers. “Has he been like this the whole time???”, Hailex asks. “Yeah, at first we thought he was drunk, now we just think he is stupid”, the guards responds.

Hailex approaches the door and looks through the slit. “Prisoner? Can you hear me?”

“I am not deaf.”

“Well, you never know”, Hailex says.

“Is this how you treat relatives of the king!??” the prisoner asks.

“No this is how we treat guests that insult the king and his family”, Hailex responds.

“I am the nephew of the king, bring him down here and I will prove it”, the prisoner says.

“If we brought the king down here every time we had a prisoner that says that they are related to him we would have a real busy day”, Hailex responds chuckling.

“Well, who are you? And is he too chicken to come down here and face me himself”, he asks?

“I’m Councilor Hailex and I guess I will come back when you can stop insulting the king.” Hailex closes the slit.

“Do we need to go in and adjust his attitude again?” one of the guards asks?

“Do what you will”, Hailex responds.

That night the guards keep the prisoner up all night so that he is fatigued the next day. And after some insults thrown at the guards the prisoner is beaten up in his cell by some angry guards.

The next morning Councilor Hailex returns to the dungeon but the prisoner continues to throw insults at the king. Hailex leaves and goes to tell Sven that someone is in the dungeon claiming to be his nephew. Sven shrugs it off and says he will check in on later as he is too busy with his wife Svetlana.

The very next morning Baron Sven goes down to the dungeon and discovers that the man is his nephew Tallik, a young but fierce war band chief, and he lets him out. The two men trade insults and Sven punches his nephew in the face, Tallik does likewise. The two men laugh it off and talk about their families. Tallik is asked he is interested in helping build the new kingdom as a General is needed after the death of General Kruznic. Sven runs the idea past Councilor Hailex and the Council but they are not convinced.

Continuing down the hall of the ancient dwarven underground city the party comes to another stone door resembling the face of a dwarf. Sven pushes the door open with ease. They enter into a cylindrical room, on the floor there are several religious verses inscribed in the stone. They inscriptions are from different gods, all with different instructions on how to complete the quest for sky.

When the party walks into the room the floor sizzles with electricity and the party becomes slightly injured. Parts of the floor are full of electricity and parts of it are not. Haylex points out seven different religious marks that do no have traps on them.
Next they come to a long stone hallway; there are several statues with their weapons pointing down the hall. Halfway down the hall, the hallway is flooded with water and the depth gets deeper the farther they go. At the end of the hall Sven pushes open a portcullis. Kruznic, Caleesee, and Dash help him.

Inside the room past the portcullis is a tall steel wall in the room with a dwarf face carved into it. There are several gems in the wall about thirty feet up. On the face there are several notches that seem movable so to push apart pieces of the face in order to complete some kind of puzzle. Hailex can tell that there is something about the religion of Dreskar that could be used to solve the puzzle. The party continues into another circular room with a weird mechanical device in the middle of the room. Dash examines it.

The party decides to head back to the main room and examine the cliff. The spiders seemed to be waiting for us and the instantly attack when Dash peers over. Dash magic missles them, before taking a few steps back. One of the spiders attacks Sven. Nyrissa shoots them with magic missles but becomes caught in one of the webs. Krunic and Sven fight off the spiders with the others using magic. Having their fill with the underground dungeon the party leaves and returns the Svenheim.

Game 26
Game Dates: Arodus (August) 28, Second Year of Svenheim – Calistri (February) 5, Third Year of Svenheim

Kruznic, Haylex and Caleesee all took a trip into Brevoy on family matters and returned a month later just before the Autumn snows began to fall.

The entire autumn and into most of the winter months the Ruling Council stayed in Svenheim and attended to government and family. No exploration or adventuring was done. It gave the council almost half a year to concentrate on the business of growing Svenheim in a better nation.

In Rova (September) the economy did very well and the militia had to deal with a large group of worgs causing problems to the south.

Lamashan (October) through Abadius (January) the economy continued to do well with the council’s guidance. Svenheim’s borders extended to the north with more farms and west into the Narlmarches during an expansion period. The Baroness Svetlana announced that she is pregnant again with the child due in July or August.

Late in Abadius (January) the Ruling Council receive an invitation to attend a festival of Erastil in Varnhold. They decide to accept the invitation and invite along their new friend Nyrissa (whom they refer to as Goldie).

At the festival Sven asks about the centaur conflict. Maegar Varn explains that Varnhold has been involved in a ongoing fight with the Nomean centaurs. Varnhold does not have an army, but they do have a highly mobile militia. The militia are more like scouts, fighting on light horses so to better fight the mobile centaurs.

Maegar Varn goes on to speak about the tense political situation on Brevoy as well as the dangers that surround the Stolen Lands like aggressive River Kingdoms. He suggests that it would probably be useful for both nations to unite forces because it would provide us stability against outside forces. Sven discusses forming an alliance with the ruling council and everyone agrees it is a good idea to accept Varn’s offer. To seal the alliance Sven cuts his hand and spits in his hand, Varn does the same. They two shake and Sven tells Varn that their two nations are now blood brothers. Varn also promises his daughter’s hand in marriage to a son of Sven’s. Sven agrees that his second son, Annar Haylex Svenson, will marry his daughter when they both come of age.

In the festival, there are several different contests. Kruznic decides to enter the archer contest. He competes with three other competitors and wins. He donates his winnings to the people of Varhold.

Sven, Kruznic and Caleesee compete in the fishing competition. Caleesee wins and is proposed for marriage by two drunken fisherman. Caleesee and Kruznic compete in the log chopping competetion. Kruznic barely beats Caleesee and she receives several glares from women spectators. She receives several more marriage propose and Heylex convinces them that they should go talk to someone else. Several townsfolk cheer, referring to Kruznic as the “unkillable general” (since he has risen from the dead at least twice). The party has some drinks as Maegar Varn’s guests and return to Svenhien the next day.

Kruznic’s wife returns and he admits that he found out that she was actually kidnapped and did not run away. He admits that she is actually a spy from the North to spy on our kingdom to make sure we do not build an army to rebel against Brevoy. Kruznic says she has since she fell in love with him that she had been used as a double spy by Kruznic and Sven. The council does not see her as a threat and decides to leave it alone.

The party goes out exploring the lands to the south and comes across a Cairen deep in the woods. They walk down a long dark hallway and into a room where an old tomb is with a skeleton. On the old skeleton, Caleesee spots a magical ring.

Suddenly they hear an old raspy voice demand, “Be banished , those of you who rob the king!”.
They look and see a skeleton in tattered robes standing in the room with them. Caleesee knows that the one speaking is a crypt thing, they are commonly found in protected barrows to protect the dead.

The crypt thing makes Hailex and then Sven disappear from the room. Seven skeletons rise and attack the remaining party. Caleesee channels positive energy killing all of the skeletons.
Looking around Hailex and Sven notices that they were teleported above the Cairen. They rush back inside to their friends. They all confront the crypt thing again.

“Who’s crypt is this my land?!!” Sven demands.

" A great barbarian king!" the thing answers.

" And what is this king’s name???" Sven asks.

“He has no name!” the thing says loudly.
“A king with no name, is no king!” Sven boasts.
" You shall go no further!!!!" the thing says as it steps behind Sven. The party turns on the crypt thing and slay it.

The party continues on to the next room which contains yet another crypt. The floor is made of dwarven steel. In the crypt, the skeleton is tightly clutching a sword. Hailex can tell that the sword is magical and magic is leaking from it because it is broken. Krunznic can detect an evil presence coming form the skeleton corpse. Kruznic runs up and attacks him.

The skeleton rises up out of its crypt. Nyrissa fires several magic missiles at it. The corpse yells “Thieves!!!”. Sven runs up and slams his axe into it saying, " This is my kingdom!!!!!!".

The skeleton attacks Sven back saying “You will serve me as you all have done before!!!”.

It seems to be getting more powerful as it hits Sven. Nyrissa fires more magic missiles.

“You are nothing if you have no name!!!” Sven yells as he attacks.

Kruznic finishes the battle with a well aimed blow and the skeleton explodes.

Looking around, Hailex can tell that the floor is mechanical in nature and attempts to find out how to use it. He finds a lever behind a fresco’s dwarf ear. He pulls one of the levers and spikes pop up on him. Caleesee and she heals him.

After a few more tries and healing, Haylex succeeds. The panel starts clicking slowly and down from the ceiling comes down something that looks like a cage. Haylex determines it is an elevator. A rock with light is tossed down the shaft in the floor and it falls and falls until engulfed by darkness.

Hailex plays with the elevator levers to get it to come back up. The party enters the elevator and Hailex uses another rock as a light source. The elevator is a complex combination of cogs, springs and dwarven engineering that we do not understand.

At the bottom Hailex can tell that we are about 2,000 feet below the surface and still going. Finally the party comes to the ground and can see stone like structures all around them and all covered in webbing. Gears turns and the door to elevator slowly opens. They can spot several large spiders in the room and they seem to standing in the center near a large structure.
Kruznic kills two spiders with arrows and the rest flee down the cliff. Kruznic lights a torch and uses it to clear away the spider webs. On the ground, their are several bones. Kruznic find a skull with no eye sockets. He sees spider tracks everywhere, but no humanoid tracks. They find dwarven runes scattered randomly around the floor.

Looking around the party sees a stairwell that leads up a big door on their left. About 100 feet in front of them, is the cliff where the spiders fled down. At the bottom of the cliff they can clearly hear running water. Behind them, is three separate hallways.

The party decides to go to the big door up the stairwell. Hailex examines the door and tells everyone that is made of steel and non-magical. He peaks through and sees a long hallway that is lined with damaged dwarven statues. On the walls ais dwarven writing.

Hailex squeezes through the door and opens it. The hallway extends for another 100 feet. There is a shattered door leading into another room at the end of the hall. Haylex reads the walls and it reads. He explains to the others that it names the long line of statues of rulers or ruler counselors. Drakor is one of the names. Caleesee explains that Drakar is one of the gods of the dwarves that promised them their toil in the quest for sky would be greatly rewarded. The quest for sky is to dig themselves out of the cave of the earth to the surface. The party figures that by the looks of this and the elevator that they probably completed their quest.

The last date is that of a king is Kadkar the 17th, which Hailex figures is almost 4,700 years before. He assists Kruznic in opening the big door and it opens very easily. Walking inside of the room, they can tell that this is probably a throne room of sky citadel. They find humanoid bones and footprints scattered about in the room.

Game 27
Game Dates: Arodus (August) 10 – Arodus 27, in the Second Year of Svenheim

In the royal kitchen of Svenheim (where the ruling council normally meets) four criminal cases come before the council. A farmer found a magical spellbook and tried to sell it. But the lord of the land claims the book is his property since it was found on his land. The farmer claims the book was lost and not a part of the land thus he claims it as his.

An elf Dash is in the kitchen with an elf whom is black and blue and shackled. The guards explain that the beat up elf is a criminal whom killed the merchant Sal and 5 of his men in town. He broke into the home and killed them. The guards found the elf bleeding and he gave no opposition to being taken prisoner. He refuses to give his name or say anything. The guards found him with adventuring gear, bow, poison, sword and he appears to be a wild elf.

Kruznic asks for the elf to speak in his defense but the elf does not. Haylex attempts to speak to the elf next, explaing that by not speaking only makes a grave matter worse. He does speak saying his name is Quava and that he did murder those men.

The accompanying elf, Dash, asks to speak to the Council in private where Dash says the leager found in Sal’s home shows a man with intials D.A. was being paid. Dash says Quava works for his family looking for magic and treasures and that he is apart of the Shin Wrackawrath. Haylex knows this Shin Wrackawrath is a secret organization of elven spies from Kyonin.

Dash speaks for the man saying he did an investigation of the home and said that he found a ledger by the merchant that said he was cheating on paying his taxes. Dash says there is no evidence that the elf Quava actually did the killing. Dash shows a leader that says 8 men are hired and over due back from an expedition. And there is a book written in code about cooking the books and getting a payment from D.A.. D.A. also purchased a mithril chisel from Sal.

Haylex gets Quava to speak before final sentencing. Quava says he works for the Queen of Kyonin and killed the men whom because they are working for renegade elves whom wish do harm to Svenheim and Kyonin.

Dash shows a water logged book that speaks of the ’Devil’s Triangle’, the place where the recent meteroite fell from the sky.

Kruznic reveals a letter from his father where he pleads Kruznic to trust the Queen and help her agianst the evil that is coming again. His father also tells him to goto the Devil’s triangle. He then writes his goodbye as he explains he will die because he will not give the The White Queen succubus her wish. He also wtires that the family sword of Kruznic’s would be important.

Also in the kitchen to face the Council is a beautiful redheaded cleric, Sigrun, was arrested for being a priest of Urgathoa (an evil diety). The guards explain that her undead companion attacked guards but it was put down. She says her god told her to come to Svenheim. When Sven learned her god is of undead and plagues he became angered and ordered her banished from Svenheim and never to show her face again upon pain of death.

Quava says that the D.A. in the ledgers was going to an exevation site to the southeast of Svenheim. The Council decides to place Quava in custody and check out his claims. The next day the party, with Dash, goes to investigate the exevation site and finds a hole in the gorund with a tunnel of runed walls. Haylex figures out that the runes inside are of ancient Tassalonian. Dash sees that the runes are gylphs of magical protection that will explode. Haylex catches a squrriel and has it set off the runes.

Done the tunnel is a room where 8 burned bodies are found within a cage. It looks as if someone in here was studying; there is fine wine here, someone lived here. Human and elf footprints are here as well, as is a small stone device that is broken. There are constallations on the ceiling. The prints of small demons are also found. The party figures out that the hidden room was exevated some weeks ago, when the meteor hit. Some literature in the room, as well as Dash’s book cites cases where a meteor can be called down by magical means.

The party decides to head to Devil’s Elbow to investigate the meteor which seems to be tied to the exevation site. They get a boat at Svenheim and hires the boat handler, Jospher, to bring them to Devil’s Elbow. After 3 days the party makes it to a salt water lake where the Devil’s Elbow island is. The island is tall, with 100 foot cliffs on all sides. Trees are flattened for miles around. The boat circles the island finding the crater there along with wrecked piers, destoyed buildinsg and only a few still standing lighthouses. Dwarves and humans are seen waving from the island. The party takes a canoe and head for a cove.

The people there want to leave, saying the island is not cursed by ghosts but by small, low creatures that terrify them. Gravel Goldhammer the leader of the expedition says this is all that is all that is left of his 13 men. They came to look for the sky metal that fell from the heavens. The party takes all the men to the lake shore away from the island so they will be safe.

When back on the island the party explores and finds a barricaded lighthouse on the edge of a cliff. Inside are a handful of exhausted and frightened mages. One of them, Smarithia, explains they are cypher mages whom came to study the meteor strike and look for any remaining metal. She explains that strange, mute creatures attacked them and they barricaded up inside one of the reamaining structures.

The party is about to escourt the mages to the boat when a wave of strange creatures attacks the lighthouse. Under the strain of some many creatures climbing the tower it crumbles at the base and slides down the cliff!

People and creatures inside are tossed about. The party tries to save as many mages as they can. Dash uses fly to escape. Sven wraps himself around Samarithia to protect her and manages to fling himself and her out of the tower to safety. Somehow all the rest of the party make it out of the sliding tower except Kruznic whom plummets into the lake with the creatures and tower. In the water he fights free of the creatures and climbs back to the party. Only one other mage survived except for Samarithia.

The party helps Kruznic and an unconsious cypher mage up from the water. On the way up, Kruznic spots a pair of dragons flying up above us. Caleesee heals Samrithia and her mage assisstant. The party begins to head back to boat with them. After dropping Samrithia and her assistant on a nearby shore, Sven offers to take them back to Svenhiem.

As the sky begins to darken, they notice that three dragons are now circling above the crater. One large size black dragon, one medium size silver dragon and one small size gold dragon.They watch as the dragons fight in the sky and one of the dragons falls to the ground.

They head back to shore and build camp. Caleesee decides to go for a midnight swim, naked. Hailex convinces anyone who tries to stare not to and stares at her himself. Getting out of the water Caleesee spots a pair of dragon track embedded into the mud. She puts her clothes back on and points the tracks out to the party. They investigate them more the next day and see that they lead in all different directions. They head back to the island and make their way towards the crater.

When they are almost at the crater they come across two zombies and instantly kill them. They notice that they are dressed in clothes that would be very common in Restov. Reaching the crater, they find the dragon that fell from the sky. Before their eyes she transforms in a young woman with dragon wings who is very clearly injured. Caleesee heals her the best she can and tries to reset her wings. While she is doing so, the rest of the party searches for awhile and find 9 pounds of sky metal called noqual that glows with a faint light.

Far east, from the a ledge the party sees a small makeshift fort. They can see at least six people there. They decide not to bother them and to retreat back to the boat.

When they reach Samrithia at the boat, they tell her of the people they saw and she says that it was another group of explorers that have been in the area for awhile.

As they set up camp, the dragon woman introduces herself as Nessa and says “I know I don’t know you guys, but could you please not tell anyone who I am?.”

" Why do you want to hide what you are?" Kruznic asks.

" People look at me like am a abomination when they know and they fear me to the point where I can’t be around them." she explains.

“So, what do we say you are?” Kruznic asks.
“Half- fae??” Hailex jokes.
“Half- fae will work.” she says laughing.

The party heads back to Svenheim having had enough of the Devil’s Elbow.

When they reach Svenheim, Kruznic checks into getting his sword fixed with his new found sky materials. Sven had Svetlana prepare a dinner and entertains Samarithia, Dash, and some party memebers. Afterwards he decides to make Samrithia the magistar which is a suprise to her. She accepts as she really doesn’t have a quick way to get home or have a job when she does.

During the week Sven decides to check up on Samarithia thinking that a woman might be overwhelmed with such an important job. Councilor Haylex tags along to visit as well. Samarithia suprises them both by being quite proficient, even recommending on how to best improve the magic knowledge and general education of Svenheim.

Back in Svenheim the party hears rumors that people are going to investigate a nearby meteor strike at Devil’s Run in Varnhold territory. Other rumors are that the giant owlbear that attacked Svenheim had a collar on and was wearing armor.

Councilor Haylex has some visitors, two landowners with a dispute and a messenger from Drelev with a complaint. The diplomatic messenger’s complaint is that Svenheim is selling weapons to Drelev’s enemies, the Tiger Lord barbarians. The landowners are having problems with water issues. One farmer stared to use water from a shared stream taking much of the water from the other’s cattle. The effected cattle rancher then disassembled the neighbor’s fence and took his cattle to where the water is still plentiful.

The farming dispute was solved when Lindetheil discovered a hidden source of ground water that the cattlemen can both use to water there animals thus making both parties happy. Baron Sven scolded both farmers for not coming together as neighbors and helping one another out instead of being greedy and having the dispute fester to this level.

The council summons the town blacksmith and asks him about selling weapons which he did say he was selling to barbarians. This is not illegal and the sales bring a lot of money into the local economy.

The council talks about the problem. Drelev is a larger nation and the barbarians are from Numeria and are invading. But the barbarians also consider the area Drelev is in a part of their ancestral lands. Baron Sven asks Lindetheil to send a messenger to the Tiger Lords and ask them to meet with him about the war. The Drelev messenger is left without an official reply to the complaint for the time being.

A celebration is held in Svenheim for the victory in The Greenbelt War and Baron Sven gives all the soldiers whom fought, and won, the spoils of the last battle.

More drama brews with the Council. Marshal Kelden Larvus resigns. Lindetheil resigns from Grand Diplomat and wants executioner post. She claims that with the whole White Queen succubus affair that it is best she lay low in a less visible position. She also says that with the recent trouble the White Queen is causing to her homeland that she may be held accountable.

The Council moves Keston to marshal, Calessee to High Diplomat and Jhod moves to High Preist. This leaves the magister position open for the time being but the council is able to find someone to at least ‘mind the store’ and keep the position from being empty.

Determined to avenge the attack on Svneheim the Council sets out to track monstrous owlbear. After two days travel the trail leads into the southeast of the Kamelands hills and to a cliff bordering a river, a tor. There is a cave in the cliff with ground trampled all around it. Large feathers litter the ground and trees are smashed around the area. Haylex determines the cave is a natural limestone cave made from flowing water. Lindetheil determines that there are at least 4 owlbears living in the area and a wandering human’s footprints are discovered.

The party sneaks into the cavern and see lots of rotten carrion with ugly fungi that Lindetheil says is violet fungi that that it is deadly. Three tunnels leave the cavern. The party uses arrows and ranged weapons to kill the plants.

Further in they find the remains of about four bandits. Perhaps they tried to find shelter but only got eaten by owlbears?

Next the party finds the remains of a family of owlbears! This is an odd find.

Finally the party comes upon the lair of the giant owlbear. It attacks with much ferocity. It is very strong, landing punishing blows. In the melee Lindentheil is finds herself in a bad spot and gets torn asunder like a rag doll by the monster! Finally, with the combined might of the party the creature’s head is taken and returned to Svenheim as proof of the slaying.

After the battle they find the corpse of another bandit. This bandit has a map of The Greenbelt with Svenheim marked on it. It is a mystery that the party may never be able to solve.

When back in Svenheim the Baron immediately orders the construction of a fitting resting place for their fallen comrade, The Hero’s Rest Graveyard.

After the Battle of Tuskwater General Kruznic and Baron Sven hammer out a plan to attack the trolls at their home. Kruznic sends message back to Svenheim to bring up supplies and some more militia but leaving a sizable reserve force. To save time Sven splits the party up and sends them on separate missions.

Spymaster Garin’s men find out that Varnhold has taken notice of Svenheim’s armies marching. And that varnhold has made small units to fight skirmishes against aggressive centaurs in their lands. Varnhold also hires adventurers to help fight and win a majority of his battles. Garin’s men also learn that Drelev to the west is holding their own against the Tiger Lords, giants and other tall walking monstrosities.

Garin also reports an odd, unnatural black cloud hovering over Svenheim and Varnhold. High Diplomat Lenditheil is sent to back to Svenheim to investigate the cloud. She discovered the cloud is not natural at all and birds avoid it. Haylex is in the town and investigates as well. Haylex calls it the ‘blot’ and theorizes the cloud is the possible creation of converging arcane energies. Some peasants say odd magic effects like this are not so uncommon The Stolen Lands.

Sven and Garin travel a day to the south to visit the hag, Elga. They ring the bell and enter when allowed. Baron Sven tries to reason that it would be in Elga’s best interest to help Svenheim against Hurgalka’s monster kingdom. However Sven’s straightforwardness only angers the already crotchety hag. Garin steps in and also tries to reason with the hag but Elga casts charm person spells and makes the two men leave her alone. Defeated the two men head back to Fort Tuskwater.

General Kruznic travels to the west with 10 militia to visit Melianse and the Fae to ask them about scouting the troll home. On the way Kruznic is ambushed by 11 worgs. The militia valiantly fight and kill 4 worgs but the militia are killed to a man. Kruznic is able to flee and lose the worgs trail. When he figures out the worgs are tracking him Kruznic turns around and heads back to Fort Tuskwater.

The party regroups after the two bad turn of events. They head out together to Melianse’s so they can handle the worgs in strength. Near Melianse’s lands they discover two hour old tracks of a about 50 trolls heading towards the northeast … directly towards Svenheim. The party decides to head back to Fort Tuskwater post haste to get the army and head to Svenheim.

The fairy dragon, Pervalish, finds the party as they travel and tells them there are two monster armies. He says both armies are heading towards the town, one after another. The first group of trolls are scrags, they must stay near the water so they are swimming up the river. The second army is trolls and with a small dragon ally.

After a forced march the army arrives to reinforce Svenheim, and the city is immediately prepared for an attack.

That night the enemy attacks, the scrags from the river attack first. At the same time horsemen are seen advancing from the hills in the east. General Kruznic commands the army to engage the scrags. Archers and musketeers fire and take down many trolls coming from the water, about 1/3 killed. When the scrags reach Svenheim’s lines they do great carnage but the line holds, barely.

The men on horseback are mercenaries that roll over the rest of the troll army. They carry the symbol of Varhhold. The remaining scrags break and flee into the river. The troll army to the east sends scouts out to probe the town. Kruznic sends out men to shore up the defenses.

The troll army leaves the next day, preferring not to attack. Before they leave a booming voice mocks, “Svenheim we are hungry, send out your women and children.”

The party greets and thanks the Varnholders. The Varnholders say that Maegar Varn received the letter that Svenheim was under attack by a monster kingdom and sent help because the thought of a monster kingdom to the west didn’t sit well with him. They agree to help in attacking the trolls but say they can’t stay long and must return to Varhhold soon.

Much drinking and story telling is done in celebration of the battle won. Three days later Svenheim’s army is rested and healed, ready for duty once again. Sven and Kruznic agree they must carry out the plan to attack the troll’s home now. The combined armies of Svenheim and Varnhold march 4 days through The Narlmarches forest until they reach the troll home encampment.

Svenheim attacks, arrows and gunfire rake the trolls as they respond by throwing rocks and other things. Both sides are heavily wounded in the exchange. A large green dragon breathes across the Svenheim lines, wounding more. The Varnholders charge and the trolls run up to meet the allied army in the field.

After all the dust settles Varnhold and Svenheim forces are badly bloodied but victory is theirs, the trolls are defeated. The survivors scatter to the forests. During the battle the party finds Hurgalka and his dragon and slay them both securing final victory in The Greenbelt War. The Varnholders bid farewell and leave for home.

When the party returns with the bloodied army to Svenheim they find the town in disarray. It had been attacked by a huge rampaging Owlbear. The town lost dozens of citizens, a bakery and a housing district. The party is able to determine that the beast left toward the southeast into the Kameland hills. They vow to track it down and destroy it. The citizens say that the black cloud over the town disappeared 4 days ago and that the owlbear attacked one day later.

News comes that Restov is sending a huge wagon train of relief goods and a 2000 gold piece reward for slaying Hargulka. The aid will go a long way in rebuilding the destroyed areas of town.

Game 22, Part II
Game Dates: Sarenith (June) 6 – Erastus (July) 8, Second Year of Svenheim

The next day the party comes upon the fort on Lake Tuskwater they had seen in the past but not explored. They see two lizard guarding the gate. Haylex knows they are not typically evil, but that they are territorial, stupid and are carnivores that may eat intelligent creatures regularly. Haylex approaches the gate to greet the lizardfolk.

“Come no closer. This is the land of King Vesket”, the lizard folk says in draconic.

Haylex convinces them to let us in to see the king. The lizard folk open the gate and the party enters.

“May we speak to the leader of this encampment?” Haylex asks them.

“They need to be escourted to the king” one of them says before the two of them take us to the largest mud hut in the encampment. The hut stands fifteen feet high, several human skulls and bones sticking out of it. Inside the party sees King Vesket. He is wearing leather armor and Haylex can tell that his gear is magical.

“Greetings, King Vesket!”, Haylex tries saying in common to see if the king will understand him.

“Speak in a language I can understand.” he demands.

“Oh, I am sorry forgive me. I forget sometimes to not speak in common. We are here because Baron Sven wishes to meet the people of his land.” Haylex says.

“These are the lands of Heragula.” it replies.

In the corner there is small boy, hanging from chains and he is just out of the reach of the two alligators that lie on the floor.

“Well…..that’s kind of what we are here to speak with you about. We wish for you to join us and stop helping the trolls.” Haylex replies.

“Our god wishes for us to shed to blood of our enemy.” he says.

“The trolls, do bleed also.” Haylex says.

“Well, our god wishes for us to have war.” he says.

“Have war with the trolls.” Haylex replies as he goes into a spiel about glorious battle and winning a war against the trolls on the side of Svenheim.

“Your argument is very compelling, but we must ask our god.”, the lizard king says. A celestial blue ghost appears, it appears as the skull of a lizard folk and floats next to the lizard king. It orders the king to “Kill them”.

Haylex can tell that this ‘god’ is a will o wisp. It shocks Haylex saying “Die….” in a raspy whisper.

Haylex proclaims, “_You are no god! You just hit me and you could not even kill me.”_

Sven uses his axes to attack the will o wisp. Garin attempts to shoot, but misses. Haylex uses glitterdust on the alligator and the King. Lindethiel attempts to shoot with her bow, but misses. Caleesee heals Haylex. Kruznic moves in front of Haylex.

“Down with your false god!!!” Kruznic yells, using his sword to kill the will-o-wisp.

“_You false god is dead, now!”_ Kruznic says loudly.

The alligator attacks Sven and Lindetheil. Sven attacks the king. Haylex moves in front of Caleese and casts Hideous Laughter, but it fails. Lindethiel attacks the alligator and it instantly dies. The king attacks Sven injuring him. Haylex casts Hideous Laughter again, but fails. Garin shoots the alligator and it explodes in blood and gore. The king once again attacks Sven. Sven misses with one axe and then hits with the king with the other. Kruznic joins the attack and injures the king. Haylex casts hideous laughter and the king falls to the ground laughing.

Kruznic backs up and allows Sven to finish off the king. Sven runs up and grapples the king by the neck. He makes sure the other lizards are watching and snaps his neck. The guards are very impressed by Sven’s move of power. Sven takes the king’s trident and points it at the guards “Your king is now dead.” he says.

They cower in front of Sven. Sven declares, “You are now citizens of Svenhien.”

Haylex walks over and takes the boy down from the wall. Caleese checks him out. She can tell that the damage done to him is physiological and he will be fine physically.

“Who here would like to be king?” Haylex asks. Four of the bravest lizard men step forward and one says “We shall fight till the death.” “Let it be so!!!!” Haylex yells.

Three die and only one stands. His name is Slirk. Kruznic steps aside and tells them that if they kill some trolls for us we will provide weapons. He tells them that their high priestess will send someone to teach them of the word of god of war. With the lizard folk now under the rule of Svenheim the party leaves the next morning.

Traveling into the wilderness the group explores in an area that a giant told them a haunt keep was. In the distance, the party sees a ruined castle. It is surrounded by ancient trees with moss hanging from them. There are four towers with moss growing on the sides. An overgrown path leads to a huge gateway where Lindetheil can detect magic coming from inside the keep.

Entering the keep, everyone hears a disembodied voice, “Is there an elf among you?” Lindethiel, Kruznic and Caleesee answer yes and the voice demands that it must speak with them. The voice says that they are trapped here in stone by the fae and that they have a message for the Queen Telandria. Lindethiel says that she has a spell that can help, but it would take her a day to prepare and asks to speak with them privately. She steps away from the party. The gate comes down and smashing Lindetheil under it!

Sven and Kruznic pull up the gate just enough to pull her out. In the courtyard the party sees a stone statue of a frail elven woman.

Sven enters through a crack in the wall with his axe drawn while the rest of the party hears running footsteps and see a fading red light glowing from one of the towers.

Lindethiel walks up to the statue and tells her, “Don’t worry I will get you out of here.”

Haylex questions Lindethiel about whether or not we should free her, but decides to trust the elf’s instinct.

Haylex, Lindetheil, Kruznic and Garin inspect the gate. Caleese sudddenly becomes injured and is knocked unconscious. Haylex rushes to her and sees foot steps all around her. There is a stab wound in her side and it appears she is bleeding to death. He stops the bleeding and determines that she has been poisoned. He picks her up and carries her to the party explaining what he discovered.

Next Lindetheil falls unconscious. Haylex uses a free hand to cast glitterdust in the aread.

Sven declares, “_Don’t ruin the treaty we have with your people….show yourself!”_

Kruznic runs up and picks up Lindethiel. He binds her wound and gives her a potion.

Next Garin becomes injured by a dagger while examining the wall but his body resists the poison.

The party backs up against a wall and Haylex again casts glitterdust on the area again as they suspect an invisible fae is attacking them.

Haylex clearly sees the creature now visible in glitterdust and moving very quickly. It seems to be the size of a halfling. Haylex casts grease in an attempt to trip the creature, but it fails. The creature runs very quickly away.

The party look for a tower to close themselves inside until Caleesee and Lindethiel wake up. Garin places Lindethiel on the back of her companion animal and Haylex continues to carry Caleesee. When they reach the tower, they close the door and Kruznic boards up it up.

Above us Haylex can see light blue lights and he can tell that this is the work of a spell. “Is anyone up there??” he asks. But no one answers. Garin climbs to the second level and finds a clay urn in the corner hidden behind a rock. Garin opens up the urn and finds jewels and money. He yells down at the party to tell them what he found.

Garin surveys the surrounds from up in the tower rafters and sees a halflioutlined by glittered dust in the woods. Haylex climbs up with Garin and looks. He determines that this creature is a quickling.

Garin watches as the quickling comes back into the castle and begins to drive nails into the tower door to trap the party inside. Haylex whispers down, “Kruznic if you hear a bang, kick the door open.”

Garin shoots his gun down at the halfling hitting it and Krunznic kicks the door wide open. Garin shoots at him again, landing another gunshot wound. Kruznic charges out the doorway and finishes the quickling off.

An hour later, Lindethiel and Caleesee wake up. “What happened??? And why are you holding me.” Caleesee says staring at Haylex._ “A creature was running around with a poisoned tipped weapon and as soon as it stabbed you, I saved you and brought you to safety.”_ Haylex says proudly. “Well, thank you…..” Caleesee says.

Searching the towers and castle grounds the party finds a mithril statue of the elven god of art and architecture.

Approaching one tower, the party can see that it is swarming with rats. Haylex moves in front of Caleesee. Lindethiel throws a flaming spear into the doorway and all the rats die. Haylex is now a little scared of the druidess.

They move on to the third and last tower. Kruznic attempts to kick the door open, but it won’t move. Garin blasts the lock with a gun but it does not work. They realize that this door is boarded shut and make a ram to knock the door open.

Inside is a room choked with vines and in the center of the room lays a poorly guarded chest. Lindetheil summons a horse to check out the chest. The horse starts to drag the chest towards us. Vines suddenly attack the horse, coming down from the ceiling snapping it in half. Lindethiel and Kruznic are stuck in their an area of magical wild growth. Next to Lindethiel a camouflaged elf looking creature with long hair and claws crawls down the wall. It launches at her and knocks the druid to the ground. The creature then attacks Sven next. Sven shows his axes to him and says “Wrong move bitch!” before using his axe to slice into it, but the creature’s wounds almost instantly heal.

Caleesee checks on Lindethiel and heals her wounds.

Lindethiel attempts to cast a gust of wind to knock the creature away aa Haylex yells “Close the door!”. The creature grabs a hold of the wall and climbs away out of view to avoid the magic. Sven drops his axe, snatching two arrows and tries to climb the wall to stab it. Sven slips and falls back to the gorund. Kruznic uses his bow to kill the creature.

Haylex opens the chest and takes a silver ring with an emerald stone and keeps it for himself.

The group heads into the tower. Haylex tries to detect magic. The inside of the tower is covered in gorgeous flowers and art. Lindethiel can clearly see a trap in a painting and she warns the party. However, they notice Garin is suddenly staring off into space.

Sven yells to Garin, “Garin, pay attention! There is a trap there be careful!” “Huhhh King?” he says.

Garin suddenly runs out of the door and Kruznic goes to get him. The rest of the party stands outside of the tower. Lindetheil casts a lessor restoration and heals Garin back to normal. Exploring the room further Lindetheil hears beautiful singing coming from upstairs. Haylex determines the song not o be magical.

Walking upstairs into the top room they all see a gorgeous nude fae woman whom is dancing and singing. Lindethiel recognizes the song as an elven nursery rhyme. Sven, Kruznic and Garin begin to dance in place all of a sudden, as if they were under some spell. Lindtheil starts to sing along to song.

“We are not here to harm you.” Haylex says.

“Don’t resist….just kiss.” she says to him. She leans into to kiss him and he pushes her away just as he notices she has very long teeth.

“I am not interested in your advances. We are not here to harm you.” Haylex says. She grabs him and bites him on the neck but he manages to slip away afterwards.

Haylex tosses Caleesee the ring he got and grabs the creature. He pushes the creature away with ease, which surprises him. Realizing that the woman’s dancing is causing the enchantments, Haylex pushes Sven down the stairs. Caleesee follows suit and pushes Kruznic down the stairs.

“Don’t look at her….her dancing is what causing the spell. You have to come up and pin her on the ground”, Haylex yells down the stairs.

Lindethiel summons an animal to fight the evil fae.. The creature attempts to attack Lindetheil, but she misses. Lindethiel shoots at her with an arrow injuring her. The creature grabs the druid and bites her neck. Lindethiel goes limp in her clutches. Haylex pulls the creature off of Lindenthiel and grapples with the creature.

Kruznic and Sven put on a blind fold and go back up the stairs. Kruznic walks around the room blindly. Sven walks over to the commotion he hears and attempts to grapple the woman. He accidentally knocks Haylex to the ground.

The dancing far rips off Sven’ s blindfold, but he has the presence to keep his eyes closed. “Look at me!!!!!” she screams.

Hailex punches the fae, slightly messing up her hair.

“Where she is??!” Kruznic asks. “She is right in front of you!” Hailex says.

Kruznic grapples the woman to the ground. Sven blindly hits her with his axe, hitting Kruznic also. Lindethiel stabs her with her arrow through her eye! The creature attacks back at Kruznic with her claws.

Kruznic pins the dancing woman to the ground breaking the spell still working on Garin.

“She’s pinned! You can open your eyes!” Kruznic yells!

Lindethiel twists the arrow in her eye deeper and Sven swings his axe, burying it into her face! The bitch is dead.

The group rests for the night and the next day Lindethiel casts a stone to flesh spell on the stoned elf in the courtyard. Lindetheil can see she has very outdated clothes. Lindethiel gives the elf woman clothes from her backpack.

“I have to talk to Queen Telandria very quickly.” The woman says. Quellandria is her name. Lindethiel tells her about her situation with her father and Quellandria says she will help us.

Lindethiel takes Quellandria off to talk in private and they return later holding hands. The group finds it odd but say nothing. However she now has a symbol on her hand and Haylex knows it the symbol of the demon god of Kionen. Lindetheil tries to explain it away as Quellandria moves towards an old inactive ring gate. The old magical portal opens in the courtyard by Quellandria’s bidding and she walks through.

“What just happened? What is she? What is she doing?” Haylex and others start asking Lindethiel.

“She is someone that will stop at nothing to save my father”, she replies.

“Open the portal now!” Kruznic orders

“This portal leads to elven capital and when you go through there are several other portals to all the other elven nations….We have no idea where she is.” Lindetheil says.

Haylex explains, “We have fighting the demon Treerazors for two thousand years and we could not beat it. We cannot go through, Kruznic. If we go through they will see that we are not elves, they will kill us. If they see me they will kill me also for having this symbol.”

Haylex studies the symbol and determines that it is a magical curse, or greater geas. Meaning Lindetheil must carry out the deal she made with Quellandria or possibly die.

In her head Lindetheil hears, “At anytime you can get cancel this greater geas, but you will owe me one.”

“What are you??” Lindethiel asks.

“I am the white succubus." she replies.

Lindethiel knows that the white succubus took an entire group of elves and tricked them and turned them into demons.

Haylex turns to Caleesee and says “I am sorry that I did not have more faith in us prevailing in combat against the dancing woman.”

“Oh, it’s okay. Here’s your ring you threw at me.” she replies.

“It was a gift.”, he says. “Well thank you, Haylex.” she says.

“What is going on?” Haylex asks Lindetheil.

“_There is nothing you can do to help.”_ she replies.

“Maybe the group can help you.” Haylex asks.

Five minutes later the portal opens and Lindetheil’s father steps out. He also has the demon mark on his hand.

“Great! You made a fucking deal too. Huh?” Kruznic saids to his father.

“I made a deal to get Lindetheil out of her geas.” he says.

“Now, the elves will be after you.” Kruznic replies.

“No, they will not. She came and explained that we have located the elven ruins as proof these lands were once Kyonin and they released me”, he explains.

“Father…..don’t say anymore.” Lindetheil says butting in, “This is to save our race and I will do anything to save our race.” Lindetheil’s father hugs her and he leaves.

The party heads back to Svenhien to conduct government duties. Kruznic’s son is born and named Kruznic Salvaris IV.

The Pharasma midwifes Sven asked help from assist in the birthing of Baroness Svetlana’s quadruplets. Caleesee joins them in what is a difficult birth but all of the children and the mother are saved and in good health. Sven is extremely thankful to the midwives and names his three sons: Hrathgar, Annar Haylex and Buliwfy (pronounced Bull-v’eye). He names his daughter Idonesa.

Word comes later that month that goblins have taken control of Fort Tuskwater. Baron Sven tells Kruznic to raise his army.

Kruznic asks the fae to spy on them. They come back and tell him that a handful of werewolves and about a hundred or so goblins are there led by a few trolls.

Kruznic gets an army of Kobolds and one hundred humans. He leaves one hundred humans in the town to protect it while he is away in case this is trap. When we reach the fort, our army’s archers shoot the goblin army before they have a chance to do any real damage Only the troll general and his other trolls remain. The party steps forward to fight. Garin shoots at one of them injuring him. Kruznic uses his lance to slice into one of them. One attacks Garin and another one badly injures Haylex. Lindethiel uses a flaming spear to attack the troll that attacked Haylex. Haylex attempts to cast Hideous Laughter, but fails. Caleesee heals Haylex. Sven uses his axe to kill the troll and he makes him splatter all over the field. The trolls are dispatched and The Battle of Tuskwater Fort is won.

Game 22, Part I
Game Dates: Desnus (May) 3 – Sarenith (June) 5, Second Year of Svenehim

The Council meets and discusses what they have learned recently.

Lindetheil understands from her diplomatic staff that Brevoy cannot send an army to help against the Monster Kingdom without offending Issia.

Haylex hears rumors among the people that a hag known as the swamp witch lives on the Lake Tuskwater. She consorts with demons and boils children in her magic caldron. The Councilor also hears the people talk about an old ruin in the forest to the west and that it is haunted by ghosts.

Garin’s spies report from the field to reveal that there has been much talk about an army full of boggards that have been very active lately, that there are giants in Numaria that have been carrying very strange weaponry that no one really recognizes. Further reports find that a black dragon has moved into the hook tongue slough to the east in Varnhold territory.

The Council heads to the south to explore the lands between them and the Monster Kingdom, stopping at Fort Tuskwater first. At the fort Haylex can tell that the tiny garrison is terrified and have been shot at several times by the goblins that have been gathering around the fort for weeks. Haylex points out the goblins to Garin and he takes a shot with his gun but misses. The shots scare the goblins off and they move away from the fort. Haylex comes up with the idea to place clothes and weapons atop the ramparts to make fake soldiers. They hope that the ruse will make the goblins think twice about harassing the garrison. They group sets up camp and go to sleep for the night.

Everyone, but Kruznic is awakened in the middle in the night by the sounds of men screaming. One of the guards is fighting, another one is slowly being killed by a werewolf and four of them are still sleeping. Manacles and chains hanging from the werewolves wrist, it seems they are pets set lose against the fort. Garin moves up closer to shoot. The werewolves attack Garin and Lindetheil’s summoned dire Bear. Sven charges one of the werewolfs and injures it with his axe. Garin takes careful aim and shots a werewolf dead.. The dire bear attacks the other werewolf. Haylex casts glitter dust and moves up by to kick the bear in fit of bravado. Kruznic finally wakes and rushes to attack, but fails to land a blow. Sven runs up with his silver axes and finishes off the remaining werewolf.

Caleesee checks on the injured guard and confirms that he is infected with lycanthropy. Kruznic leans down by him, telling him that he is going to be okay and then quickly ends his life with his sword. It is clear to see the remaining five guards are offended. Haylex explains to them that he had to be killed or he would turn into a werewolf himself. Sven orders Kruznic to make his men fall back to Svenheim as soon as they can, the situation is to dangerous for them.

The party heads south to check out on the rumors of the old hag that lives on the lake. At the base of a low hill, near a small bog, they see an old beat down hut. There is a wall of mud surrounding the hut and a tall gate made of tied together sticks. There is an old rusty bell sitting near the gate and an old scarecrow standing in the yard. Sven notices that the scarecrow’s head turns slowly to follow them. From the hut the party can smell something horrible being cooked. Lindethiel casts detect magic to determine that a low level abjuration effect ruminates from the bell.

“Good morning neighbor! Is anyone home?”, Haylex yells towards the hut. A horrible looking woman sticks her head out of the window hole in the hut. Haylex can tell that she fits the description of a night hag. “Baron Sven, Ragnarsson has come to meet with you”, Haylex replies.

“What do you want?” she says angrily.

The gate slowly opens by itself. Sven eyes it suspiciously and kicks it.

Haylex takes Kruznic’s arm and pushes him to the back, hoping he will catch the hint to stay behind just in case anything happens. Inside the hut, Haylex sees several spells components and a magical cauldron that has bones floating in it.

“Why have you come to my home?” she says snarling. “Our good lord Baron has wanting to meet and greet all the people in this great area. What family have you come from?” Haylex asks. “I was born of the land.” she replies. “What were you spawned by?” he asks. “I don’t understand why you would be asking what race I am…but….but I am almost fully a fae!” she replies. “Oh, we have good relations with the fae. Do you know Melliance?” he says. “I know her, we are related! And she talks way too much.” she says angrily. “Well it was nice to meet you. What is your name?” he asks. “My name is Elga.” she replies. “Well, my name is Haylex.” he says.

The hag replies, “While you here, you can do a favor for me. I need to go south east to pick me up some black rattle caps. I am running low and I do not feel like getting them for myself. I will pay you.”

“That is not necessary to pay us, we help our neighbors.” Sven replies. “Be quick.” she says.

The party crafts rafts to cross the lake and leave Mack Mack to guard the horses. Reaching the other side, they begin to search for the black rattle caps and soon come upon a boiling patch of mud. The mud is musty and smells nasty. Kruznic throw up on himself unable to stomach the smell. Lindetheil can see a lot of fungus in the area and can tell that the mud is geothermal. She also sees a patch of black rattle caps, at the base what looks like trees. At closer look she can tell that one of them is a treediculus and remembers they are dangerous.

“I will be right back.” Haylex says, going invisible and walking towards mushroom patch a the tree. He notices when he harvests the first one that the fungus makes a rattling noise. He takes three more of them and quickly tries to get away. The treediculus spots him and unroots itself from the ground flailing its roots all over the place. It grapples him and then drops him into the mud. Slightly injured, Haylex runs away. “Holy shit, I almost died….let’s go”, Haylex complains to the party. They leave the muddy area and Caleesee creates water to clean off the party.

When they return to the Hag’s hut, Caleesee casts detect evil before they enter. “Why are you here???” the Hag demands. “We brought you what you asked for”, the party reports.”

“How many did you get??!” she asks. “We only got three before we were attacked”, Haylex explains. “Oh there are monsters in the woods?? You don’t say!” she says sarcastically.

Lindethiel looks around for adventurer equipment or kids clothing, but finds nothing.

Sven asks, “Do you know anything about the crazy druid in the west?? Or the ruins to the far west???”

The Hag explains, “Oh, the mad druid and his evil tiger. They kill many and pose as travelers. The ruins you speaks of are inhabited by undead."

”Well, we be on our way. We may be passing through periodically." Haylex says.

“Fine! Fine! Fine!” she replies. The party leaves the hag whom is relieved to get rid of the annoying adventurers.

A day out from the hut the party spots a traveling man and when he gets closer they can tell he is wearing magical gear. Using the scent of her animal, Lindtehiel can tell that there is a predator in the area. “Hello, travelers!” the man says.

Haylex says, “Hello, what are you doing out here alone?? Don’t you know there is crazy druid in the area.”

“Yes, we are going to find him and kill him!”, Sven says holding up his axe towards the man.

“Fine! Kill them!” the traveler says. A tiger comes from the woods and rushes towards him. Kruznic, Garin, Lindethiel and Sven kill both the tiger and the man without much trouble. Tracking back to the crazy man’s lair they find some loot hidden inside a tree.

Game Dates: Gozran (April) 25 – Desnus (May) 2, second year of Svenheim

Having successfully locate the troll lair the party heads back to Svenheim by boat. A couple of days before reaching Svenheim, on Lake Tuskwater, Sven looks down and sees a huge hydra swimming underneath the boat. The hydra hits the boat knocking everyone out and into the water. Haylex begins to drown. Lindethiel’s bager swims over to the hydra and attacks it. The hydra attacks the bager killing it! The faithful companion slowly slips beneath the waters, having done his best to protect his master.

Caleesee start to swim towards shore. Sven swims in front of Calessee to protect her and swings his axe to slice into the creature. Haylex regains his composure and heads towards shore. Garin shoots the hydra injuring it. The hyrdra attacks Sven and Haylex with multiple heads biting into them. Caleesee heals them quickly. Raging, Sven uses his sinks his war axe deeply into the creature, blood and gory flies everywhere! The creature is dead. The party gets the carcass back to shore and burn the body. Sven keeps the skulls of the creature. The party recovers the boat and continues the trip back to town.

Once back, one of the town guards approaches us and tells us of a group in the west that wants to meet with Sven and Haylex.

Haylex hears a rumor that the staglord has to come back to unlife and is leading a undead army. Garin hears that there is a cult of gyrona in town and that the kingdom of Drelev in the west has gone to war with the tiger lords of Numeria.

Garin learns that Hilda and her family are in town for the Wedding Festival and he courts Hilda by bringing her out on the town.

Haylex hears word of Caleesee’s boyfriend being in town and that she claims he is not her boyfriend.

Guards tell Sven that people wish to meet with him and Sven gives them orders to tell the people to meet him in his royal court, the kitchen. A man and a woman show up at his door. The man is tall and very strong looking and the woman is manly looking. Sven introduces himself as Baron and Haylex as Councilor.

The man introduces himself as Lord Loy Rezbin and says, “I have a big family and can bring lots of settlers. I would love to, with your permission to found a settlement and I am hoping you will support me in doing so.” he says and points out where he would like to settle on a map which is the old tantzlewyrm lair.

“We have given to permission to our loggers to get resources there.” Sven explains.

“Why do you want to build in the middle of the woods?” Haylex asks.

“I want to build from the ground up and make a name for myself here. I would like to use the ford there to help build my new town. I have planned this out and believe I can create a thriving economy there.” Loy replies.

“You have to know that south of river is off limits for building, exploring or hunting. Hope you don’t have a problem with the fae because they will be your neighbors forever.” Sven tells him.

Sven and Haylex discuss the offer but decide they can not afford such a start up at the time. Sven tells Loy and his wife that when the time comes, and resources are available to build a town that he will be contacted.

Hilda makes it plainly clear that her father, Larry the Hunter, expects for her to get married. Garin agrees and pops the question to Hilda two days before the wedding festival and she accepts.

At the end of Gozran the Wedding Festival is held and is a huge success, adding some resources to the barony’s funds. Many citizens get married. Both Treasurer Oleg and Spymaster Garin get married during the festival. They are both marrying a daughter of Larry the Hunter. Oleg marries Naudia and Garin marries Hilda, their noble marriages are the highlight of the three day festival.

Caleesee notices more and more trinkets being left on her door step as mysterious gifts. She decides to leave Haylex a note on his door that she needs to speak with him about it.

After the festival Haylex learns from the citizens that a new Gyronna cult is in town. He investigates by asking around and discovers that adulteress women, embittered prostitutes and spurned lovers are likely to be the ones that are in the cult. From the town guards he recieves a list of likely people that fit the description of the cultists.

Kruznic sends a letter to his homeland, Brevoy, warning them about the trolls in case he loses contact with them. They send word that if he rids the lands of the trolls, they will send more resources. He then goes to see the Melianse and her fae friends and asks them for their help to spy on the trolls. She warns him about a goblin army that circles Fort Tuskwater looking for weaknesses.

Haylex begins an investigation, visiting each woman on the list with Caleesee following and taking notes. First he goes and sees Clemence, who is a town seemtress. He looks over her carefully trying to see if there are any religious marks anywhere on her. He begins to talk about religion and wierd religion activities. She seems to not know what he is talking about and they crosses her off the list.

Next he goes to see Nichola. They have a pleasant coversation and he gets the feeling that she is hiding something from him. Helen does not seem to know anything. She does not appear to know anything about Gyronna. They puts a star by her name. He then goes to see Katherine and she seemed to be hiding something, being some what invasive. They put a star next to her name. Next is Eleanor, and he does not know whether or not she is hiding anything. They puts a star and a question mark next to her name. Ursula seems to not know anything. When speaking to Sybil he does not know whether or not she is hiding anything. He puts another star and a question mark next to her name. Going to see Cecily, she appears very nervous and seems like she is hiding someone. They put a big star next to her name. Chritine seems highly susipicious. He puts a big star next to her name. Clarice seems to definitely be in the cult and they put “kill this bitch” next to her name. Constance seemed very supicious also. Isabel seems not to know anything.

Haylex decides to pulls Clarice to the side and charms her. He questions her about whether or not she is in the cult. He learns that they meet in a barn outside of town and they are led by Madam Nisca. They are going to meet that night.

Haylex remembers that this particular group of cultist are known for swaping babies with changlings. Haylex gets the Council together and tells them what he has learned. Kruznic is very disturbed to learn that the midwife whom he has hired to help with the delivering of his child is the leader of this cult and that his child was most likely going to be exchanged for changlings.

They discuss what to do and they decide to get thirty militia to surround the barn and they will go inside to confront the cult. When they reach they barn, they notice that the barn and is very well lit. They decide to go inside and when they do a magical alarm goes off. They see a trap door surrounded by hay and figure that everyone is down there. Below they hear several spells being cast and Haylex realizes that the spell is “prayer”.

Sven opens the trap door and sees seven woman standing in the back of the room, holding daggers. Sven charges downstairs and gets attacked by the dagger wielding women. The leader casts a spell on him, a curse. Sven laughs at the feeble attempts of the women and drops his axes so that he can punch the women and subdue them. Haylex casts glitter dust on the leader and very soon the entire cult is captured alive. Haylex sees that every woman that he was supicious of on the list are present. The party questions the leader, Nisca, about whether or not any of the children in town have been changed for changlings and she claims that they have not.

In the corner there is a shrine to Gyronna and Haylex knows destroying it would release a curse. Caleesee uses a blessing on the shrine and rids it of they evil.

The next day at noon all of seven of the cultist are publicly executed for the high crime of attempted murder against Baron Sven. Other charges include conspiracy to swap newborns for monsters and conspiracy to sacrifice the kidnapped children to Gyronna. After the be-headings the cult shrine is publicly destroyed.

Svenheim citizens are relived that the cultists are taken care of and unrest about cult worries disappears.

After defeating the worgs the party camps out and heals. Calessee gets called away back to Svenheim to deal with High Priestess issues as the rest of the party heads on towards the tantzlewyrm. Up ahead on the river the party sees a beaver dam where the wyrm was last seen by them.

Two tanzlewyrms are seen sunning on the dam, they are unaware of the party. Haylex turns invisible and walks up behind Kruznic to attempt a parley with he beasts. As expected the wyrms are not happy to see the party in their territory and hiss at them before charging Kruznic.

Kruznic charges also, his lance piercing a wyrm. The wryms attack back and entwine Kruznic and blow posionous clouds of gas on him. Garian aims his gun and shots the lanced wyrm dead. Lindentheil’s badger finsihes off the last wyrm. Sven exclaims in disbelief, “What kind of pussy dragons are these!?” The party searches for a lair and finds a small cache of treasure before heading back to Svenheim. The nearby cooachwood tree groove is now free for Korax and his loggers to harvest.

In Svenheim, Kruznic informs the Council that new recruits at Fort Tuskwater have produced 200 trained militia that can be called in the capitol up when needed. Also, 200 kobolds are available from the Sootscale tribe to fight for the barony as vassals.

Lindentheil reveals the disturbing personal message to the Council, her father (High Diplomat Haldir Arolen) has been imprisoned by the elven Winter Counci and set to face trial as a traitor. The reason given was that he was wasting resources making ties with the barbaric human kingdom, Svenheim, when they are art war with Tanglebriar.

Haylex figures out the charges against Lindentheil’s father Haldir are: unlawful expansion of culture and the expenses it encured, having a half-bred bastard son (Kruznic), and abuse of treasury during time of war. Haylex believes he has found a defense, that Kyonin was once a very large kingdom that even encompassed Svenhiem some 3000 years ago. Thus it is possiable to say Lindentheil’s father was investing in the old lands of Kyonin by cultural exchanging with Svenheim. Haylex offers to help and represent Haldir at his trial.

In town the party sees a portly man standing on a box in front of the Yodeling Cock rabble rousing a crowd. He says " Beware of the Baron! He speads your money on whores and his fairy friends in the woods." General Kruznic wants to arrest the man but Baron Sven and Councilor Haylex tell the general that the man is free to voice his opinions in Svenheim as long as he is not hurting anyone.

Councilor Haylex steps foward and says “Dear sir, what is your name!?”. The man replies, “Conselor Haylex, are you back from your adventure to take more from the treasury?”

Haylex says, “_Sir, we are clearing area, so that loggers can continue to cut the coachwood that brings money to the town economy. Also, we were ridding the land of a life threatening dragon.”_ Haylex holds up the head of the dragon. “King Sven does not hide behind a throne! He handles the issues of the kingdom himself.”

“Okay where is the theatear you promised us!???", The man retorts.

“Sir, you have a theatear that is being built as we speak! Also, you have a talented bard that visits the Inn to entertain the citizens of the town every other tuesday.”, Haylex responds.

“How soon is that you will start raising the taxes like you did a year ago.”, the man replies loudly.

Haylex retorts, “Sir, we have not raised the taxes for this long and we don’t plan on raising them. Since, the population of our kingdom is up there is no reason to raise them. Sir….where are you from?”

“I am from around…." the man replies.

Hylex reconizes him as someone that has not been here long and that his name is Grigory._ “You were not here, sir to witness any of that. Where did you recieve your information since it is obvious you did not come up with this by your own means.”_

Grigory says, " I have heard these complaints from the people!!"

Haylex offers, “Sir, can we go in have a conversation in private?”

Grigory replies, “As long as I don’t go missing from the night!”

Haylex nods, “Okay, lets go."

Hylex walks with Grigory to the Yodeling Cock inn & tavern. Grigory says to the crowd,_ “Citizens! I will return of the morrow if I do not end up missing in night. If I am not here on the morrow you will know what became of my fate!”_

While inside of the of Yodeling Cock, Hylex attempts to debate Grigory into reason and to stop his rabble rousing but the two mean are at a stand off. Haylex, annoyed he can not persuade the man to reason, attempts to charm Grigory but fails! Grigory is keen on what just happened and casts his own charm person spell in return! Haylex also resists the charm.

Grigory walks yelling that the noble just tried to use his sorcerous evil powers on him with a spell! Haylex claims the same to the crowd. The two men are at a deadlock and Grigory leaves the tavern. Hyalex talks to the remainder of the crowd outside trying to persuade them differently than what Grigory had told them.

Spymaster Garin asks around town and uses his contacts to find out the Grigory is from Rostlin.

Haylex does some digging himself around town and comes up with the information that Grigory that is from the west, from Fort Drelev and that has only been in town for a week. Baron Sven raises the suspicion that Grigory may well be an agent sent to Svenheim to cause unrest in the fledgling nation.

High Preistess Caleesee is suddenly approached by a group of Sootscale kobolds. They tell her, “_All mighty Caleesee, an ambassor from the south would like to make an alliance with us and King Sut’ Scale would like you there while we make proper negoiations.”_

Calessee asks, “An alliance with whom?”

The kobolds explain, “Green creatures…I am not quiet sure.”

Calessee relays the information to the party and Baron Sven decides to send Lindetheil and Kruznic with Calessee, leaving Councilor Haylex and the rest to deal with the Grigory situation in town.

After awhile of Haylex standing outside, attempting damage control, the crowds of people leave for home. DUring his interactions with the people Haylex hears a rumor that there is a wondering hill giant and a evil green dragon in the far south of The Greenbelt.

Calessee happens to notice that Hylex has been talking to her alot lately.

Calessee, Lindetheil, Kruznic, the kobolds and 6 of Kruznic’s men travel a couple of days to Sootscale Caverns. When they arrive they smell a pig roasting over the fire. King Sut’Scale approaches them and says “It is good you showed up to help us negotiate."

He leads the delegation into a room full of trolls, each of them of eating a pig. “Oh, the pinkies are here!" one of the trolls says.

Kruznic keeps a straight face, not showing any fear. “Yes, we have come to help.”

The troll leader, a smart one by the name of Hargulka tells the kobolds, “If you continue to side with the pinkies you will become nothing more than halfling substitutes.”.

Kruznic defends the kobolds in a back and forth with Hargulka.

Calessee finally speaks up, “Did you prevent their entire race from being slowly picked off? Did you prevent them from being led by a evil leader? Did you protect them? Are you going to protect them?”

Before he can answers, Calessee demands, “The answer to all those questions, are no. You are doing nothing, but coming here insulting them. We have protected them and will will continue to protect them in the future.”

The kobolds are easily swayed by the words of their ‘goddess’ Calessee and refuse to join an alliance with the trolls. Hargulka is displeased and engages into insults with General Kruznic for the rest of the night. Kruznic learns that Hargulka is trying to grow a ‘monster kingdom’ and that they will fight all whom oppose them.

After the delegation returns to Svenheim, Caleesee sends for her family and friends to come live in Svenheim. Jacob, an old crush from her past comes along, even after Caleesee made it clear that she did not want him here. He introduces himself to the party as Caleesee’s boyfriend!

With the disturbing news that Hargulka is gathering an aggressive kingdom of monsters Sven tells General Kruznic to send scouts to gather information for troll activity in the south. Eight of the ten hired scouts eventually return but with no useful information.

Baron Sven orders General Kruznic to set out with Garin and scout to the south himself. But after further discussion it is determined that even with problems in the town that the entire party would be more successful in the mission. Councilor Haylex stays behind to continue his damage control in Grigory’s wake.

The party goes south by boat, the quickest means of travel. They go down Lake Tuskwater and into the Candlemere where they see a tower on an island and a wooden fortress to the west at the mouth of a river. They have no time to investigate and mark the places on their maps.

As the party enters into the southern flow of River Shrike they land and scout the hills to the south. It is not even a day before they upon a childlike hill giant. Calessee casts detect evil to find out he is not. The party speaks to him and gives him what alcohol they have as a bribe. The giant tells them that Hargulka wouldn’t take him even though he likes to fight.

When the giant pulls out a map carved on a cow carcass, Lindentheil and Sven notice several places on his map. One place is a keep to the northwest and another is a camp to the southwest. They ask about the places on the map. The giant replies that the keep is haunted and he stays away. About the camp he says that is where the trolls live.

Having found what they were looking for the party gets back into their boats for the return trip to Svenheim.

Joesph, one of the coachwood loggers whom was forbidden to log Melianse’s trees was captured after setting several fires throughout Svenheim, inlcuding General kruznic’s home. Baron Sven put Joseph into Kruznic’s hands for judgement since it was his home that was damaged. Kruznic sent him to Fort Tuskwater to work for ten years.

High Councilor Haylex speaks with the people and tries to calm the bad feelings among the population due to the anti-logging decree. Haylex discovers the people are happy that criminals are being handled and the economy is booming. Although the citizens do bemoan the need for more entertainment and that the taxes are too high.

High Diplomat Lindetheil discussed with the party about having her wedding to Marshal Kaldarin Larvus. She proposed a lavish wedding, as would be normal for an elf of her family’s status. The party decided to pay 4000 gp from their own pockets to host the nobles and elf wedding guests from the elven nation of Kyonin for a week. The hope is that the wedding will help establish diplomatic and economic ties with Kyonin and that it will help improve the kingdom in the future.

Talk about moving the Tantzlwyrm has come up among the Council. Doing so would free up the coachwood trees found around it’s lair for logging. Haylex argues it is a win-win; it would open the area for development and the unrest from the loggers could be quelled when they get the rights to log the new coachwood.

In the middle of the journey to the tantzlewyrm lair the party is ambushed by a group of dire wolves led by a worg. The party fights them off, but the battle was hard and Calessee almost out of healing power.

Game Dates: Pharast (March) 27 – Gozran (April) 5, second year of Svenheim

The Leadership Council confronts Spymaster Garin about the traitorous rumors that he has hired bandits to kidnap a lowly prostitute. Garin admits that a prostitute had given him an disease and he was worried about the political fallout if word of it got out. He says that through contacts he had paid for the prostitute to be taken and dropped off in a faraway town with some money. Garin claims he had no idea that bandits were involved.

Dismayed, the Leadership Council verbally reprimands Garin and unites behind Baron Sven’s call to get the girl back to right this wrong. The Council starts by questioning Garin’s contacts, some scared farm laborers, whom claim they passed the job on to some local bandits. They point towards a construction foreman in Svenheim whom is forced to pay the bandits protection money every week. After speaking with Foreman Joe he says he will be paying the bandits that night. The Council hides around the construction site, surrounding it, and wait on the bandits.

After the bandits show up the leader yells out for the mercenaries to show themselves or he will kill the foreman. Obviously, these are competent bandits, not what was expected. Baron Sven shows himself and offers to talk but the bandit stabs Foreman Joe in the gut anyway. Enraged, Sven charges the leader as the rest of the Council advance towards the fight. Foreman Joe, still alive, is killed when the bandit leader throws a javelin of lighting at Sven getting them both. The Council finishes up the fight; Sven punches the crap out of the leader on the ground capturing him.

Questioning the captured bandit the Council finds out that he took the job from the contacts to kidnap the prostitute and then left the girl dead in a ditch outside of town. The Council executes the bandit and has his body displayed in the town square with a sign saying that banditry will not be tolerated against the citizens of Svenheim. The body of the prostitute is found and the Council makes Garin put her in a proper grave. Later, Baron Sven suggests that Garin be stripped of his Spymaster position for abusing his power. The rest of the Council decides to give Garin a second chance instead.

The Council goes out to explore and when coming up on a fast flowing river, the party hears sounds of unintelligible echoes. In the fast flowing Skunk River, there is a caravan of gnomes. Hung up on a rather large rock, is a cart with two horses attached to it. Sven and Kruznic quickly hop off their horse, heading towards the cart. Sven effortlessly picks up the cart and puts it on the shore. The gnomes try to help Sven and Kruznic out of the water as much as they can.

Sven signals for the rest of the party to follow and everyone makes there way across the river. Calessee, who is not a very skilled swimmer, believes that stripping naked will help her swim better. Looking around, the party can see that the entire group of gnomes has been beaten pretty badly. Questioning them, they find out that they had been in a brutal fight with a group of Kobolds. Caleesee looks down at Mack Mack, who for some reason is incredibly drunk. She pushes him behind her, hoping the gnomes don’t notice. The gnomes reveal that the kobolds whom attacked them are from further south and not the Sootscales.

Talking more to the gnomes, they learn that their leader, Narthropple, is a cartographer whose goal is to map the entire Greenbelt region. He has taken very extensive notes on everything he encounters. Haylex makes a deal with him to exchange information about nearby areas and Sven documents the information about a crazy druid and old ruins to the west. Narthropple tells us that if we happen to find more hidden items in these areas to return to him and he will give us more information. Sven offers to give Narthropple a job as a cartographer after he finishes his goal of mapping the region.

The party came upon an angry water Fae that was having a standoff against loggers. The party listened to both sides. The loggers wanted the valuable coachwood trees and don’t consider them the property of a fae whom could move elsewhere. Melianse, the water fae, claimed the trees are hers and that the loggers have no right to kill them. She charmed Kruznic to enlist his help but the party just put him to sleep with Haylex’s spell then tied him up with a gag.

During an often volatile negotiation a back and forth discussion ensued. When Melianse grew upset she attempted to use her fae charming power again. Garin took offense and thought he was protecting his friends by opening fire on Melianse. The party rescued the loggers and they all flee to the woods after Baron Sven orders everyone to leave the fae alone.

Afterwards the party enlisted the help of a fae friend, Falchos, and they were able to calm Meianse down. Melianse revealed that the coachwood trees are part of her land and that they help sustain her ‘life force’. Understanding this, Baron Sven, promised Melianse that her lands will never be harmed. Melianse insisted on sealing the deal with a kiss; afterwards she game Baron Sven a ring or protection and vowed she would watch over all of Svenheim’s citizens along the rivers.

Game Dates: Pharast (March) 21 – Pharast 27 , In the Second Year of Svenheim

The Council gathers to see what’s going on with the slaughtered sheep. Observing the sheep, Haylex can tell that these were probably killed by a werewolf. Haylex recalls hearing about a similar situation that happened in town at the Yodeling Cock Inn (yes, that really is its name) where one barmaid and two horses were found killed.

Lindetheil’s asks her companion badger to track the werewolf from the sheep. The badger believes that it went in one direction, but Haylex can tell for sure that the tracks are going in opposite direction. Thinking the badger is confused the party follows the tracks Haylex found; the tracks soon turn into human tracks and lead into town. The tracks lead right to the Yodeling Cock Inn, the party reaches the inn at about nine at night and it is very crowded.

Once inside Sven asks for the to proprietor whom recognizes the baron and the Council. The Inn Keeper is bald with facial hair on only one side, he introduces himself as Richard Cranium. He is sitting behind the bar watching a very inexperienced young boy clean tables. Sven asks him if he asks any new tenants or employees. The keep replies he has several of both. Haylex asks Sven quietly if it is wise to inform him of what is going on. Sven looks over the bar at the man’s boots, which are very worn, but also pretty clean. Sven agrees against telling the inn keep why they are there.

Lindetheil sends her bager to sniff around and he stops at a table that has only one guy sitting at it. The bager growls and shows his teeth at him. Haylex apologizes for the bager’s actions and calls Lindethiel over to retrieve it. The man introduces himself as Tim and offers Haylex a drink.

Haylex turns on the charm and finds out that Tim has been here for a few months. He offers him another drink and he accepts it, even though he has not yet drank the first. Haylex waits and continues to talk to him until he becomes very drunk. “Do you have a place to stay tonight, my good sir?”, asked Haylex. “Well…..I usually just sleep right here. I save my money for the important stuff.” he says holding up his glass. “Oh well…you are welcome to sleep at my place.” Haylex says. “You are so much nicer than the gentleman I had drinks with last night. It must be cold for him out there, leaving his jacket behind and all”, Tim says.

Thinking about it, Haylex picks up the jacket and brings it over to the bager. The bager growls at it and Haylex realizes he has the wrong guy. He questions the owner and finds out the man drinking with Tim last night was named Kundall and that he has a room at the inn. Richard, the inn keep, leads the party to Kundall’s room and they knock several times on the door. When they recieve no answer, Kruznic debates on whether or not to knock down the door. Luckily, Richard produced a key and he is told to stay outside in the hallway as this if official Council business only Searching the room, Lindetheil finds a human ear with an ear ring underneath the bed. “There’s the barmaid’s ear ring!!!” Richard gasps behind the party. Sven yells in disbelief, “Whom let him in!?”

The party debates how to get Kundall, the suspected werewolf. They talk about waiting in hiding at the room or trying their luck in searching the town at night. Since it is a full moon night they decide to risk a town search and rush out into the streets of Svenheim.

Sven spots a shadowy figure jumping from roof to roof and can make out that it is indeed a werewolf. Sven alerts his friends but not in time as the werewolf jumps down and kills a woman walking down the street.

Garin attempts to shoot, but his gun has complications and he misses. Sven quickly charges in raging at the murderous creature. With a silver ax in each hand he slashes into the werewolf causing him pain from the silver. Lindethiel sends her bager in to attack with his claws. The werewolf bites Sven, injuring him. Sven laughs at the werewolf and Caleesee quickly heals him. Kruznic charges next and with a huge swing chops the beast’s head off with his great sword.

The town guards come running up after the werewolf is dead. Sven orders them to find the family of the woman who died by the hand of the werewolf. Over the next week Haylex spreads the word of our victory through out the town, giving credit to the Baron and thus raising the citizens loyalty towards the crown.

The next day Sven sends a summons to Fred the Hunter and his three daughters with the intention of calling in an old debt. Back before Svenheim, Sven had helped Fred by giving him a new bow and equipment after the bandits had robbed Fred of everything and left him to die. In return Fred offered the hand of one of his daughters if the Stag Lord was defeated.

Sven gives Haylex orders to speak to Fred the Hunter and explain that the Baron wishes a daughter to be wedded to Treasurer Oleg Leveton. Fred is delighted and Oleg is brought in to be informed of the arrangements. Also delighted, Oleg chooses to marry the eldest (and stunningly beautiful) daughter Naudia. Sven is pleased, and hopes that this gesture will help mend bridges between him and Oleg. Baron Sven sets the wedding date for the next Gozran Wedding Festival which is a month away.

Dreadful news arrives at Baron Sven’s door when Executioner Keston Garris informs him about a disturbing conversation he had with Spymaster Garian Loxley. It seems Garian asked Keston what the best way would be of getting rid of somebody. Keston said he balked at the very idea and was honor bound to inform the Baron.

High Councilor Haylex and Sven meet in private to discuss news that the High Councilor had learned from talking with the citizens. It seems there is a rumor going around that a noble has gotten a disease from a low prostitute and that the prostitute has disappeared. People say bandits were hired and she was taken away to be a sex slave. Haylex said he did some checking and there is indeed a missing prostitute of ill-repute and the people are talking about it.

The Baron is angered that a citizen of Svenheim would be kidnapped and that Garian would hire enemies of the crown. Sven fears this may be a treasonable act and vows the Council must do everything they can to get the girl back. Both men inform the rest of the Council, minus Garian, and they decide to confront Garian.

Despite the bad news there is also some good news. Aleesha, wife to General Kruznic, announces she is 7 months with child. Kruznic is happy but forbids his wife from continuing her traveling merchant business while pregnant. Which was the very reason Aleesha hid the news from him for so long.

And more good news, Baroness Svetlana, Sven’s wife, had been pregnant for about 5 months. But something seems odd about the pregnancy now. High Priestess Calessee does a check up and reveals that Svetlana is most likely with quadruplets! Sven, for once in his life, is left speechless.

Game Dates: Pharast (March) 6 – Pharast 21, in the second year of Svenheim

While exploring to the west of Tuskwater, through the woods, Sven spots five guys from a distance that look to be bandits carrying stolen goods. Sven brings it to everyone’s attention and they began to head towards them with Kruznic leading the way on horse.

As soon as they leave the covering of the trees, several shots were fired at Kruznic, Sven and Lindethiel. Sven charges one of the bandits on his horse and with a leap from the saddle tackles him to the ground. Garin grapples another one and takes him down. Kruznic takes out two bandits while Sven and Garin wrestles their victims into submission. The two bandits being beaten on the ground surrender as well as the last bandit still standing on his feet.

By questioning the bandits, the party finds out that the bandit who escaped in the Stag Lord encounter is named Dove\an. They question them about where Dovan is located and the bandits point at a place on the map that is out of their charter. The tell the bandits to lead the way to Dovan and began to follow the prisoners.

After two days of following them, the party begins wondering if the badnits are actually telling the truth and Kruznic threatens to kill them if they are lying. Looking down at her bager, Lindethiel says " I hope you are hungry.". The bandits are obviously intimidated and one of them immediately begins to speak up. He says that there is actually no encampment and that they have been leading everyone in the wrong direction in order to get us killed for trespassing. Kruznic immediately executes the two that didn’t speak up. They find out the remaining bandit is named Skylen and that Dovan is now in charge of new bandits in the region. Kruznic decides to let Skylen live and take him back to town to be reformed.

They continue on exploring the forest and from the distance Garin can see what looks to be a wingless white dragon sitting on a rock at the edge of the Skunk River. Lindethiel can tell that this a tantzlewyrm and that it is poisonous. Caleesee remembers Oleg saying that he wanted the head of this animal, unharmed of course, as a conversation piece for his trading post. Suddenly, the creature hisses a warning in draconic and disappears into the water. The river here is very fast flowing and it was dammed up by logs. They decide not to harm the animal and to move on.

Further to the west the party comes across an area that looks as though no animals have inhabited in a very long time. Lindethiel notices several rare flowers and decides to put one in her bag. They make camp and when Lindetheil wakes the next morning she discovers she is covered in pollen. She spends part of the morning sneezing and trying to get it off of her. She also notices her pet is very drunk, but it eventually wears off. Inspecting the flower closer, she can see a pillow, blanket and a small lantern. Seeing this, she realized she had disturbed some tiny Far’s home. The pollen and drunk badger was most likely it’s revenge.

Exploring the area more, it is discovered a clearing where statue that is covered in thorns. They can tell that is a statue of a deer headed man. Caleesee can tell that this is statue of of the god Erastil. Lindetheil tries to figure out if it is surrounded by magic. She discovers it is, but she is unable to figure out what kind of magic.

Exploring the forest further south the next day, the party still notices no animal activity. Looking around, they see a swamp area surrounded in bugs and a pond fill with blood colored water. In the middle of the foul bog they see a white horse that seems to be dead, sticking head first in the swamp. For some odd reason it is one of the only things that is not covered in bug or maggots. Also, it looks like it is not rotting as well. Lindetheil thinks that maybe the water is red because of the red clay surrounding the pond. Caleesee can tell that the magic aura on the horse is necromancy. Garin debates on whether or not to walk out into the foul bog to the horse, but decides against it. Lindethiel summons a horse and gets it to walk around in the pond to see if anything will happen, but nothing does. They decide to come back to this enigma at a later time.

After a couple days of exploring more, they come across a gorgeous girl with fiery red hair weeping next to a pond. She has a small bright bird with red feathers perched on her shoulder and she seems to be wearing nothing, but thorns. Hiding behind a nearby tree, Haylex sees a satyr. Lindetheil knows the girl is either a Fae or a nymph. She communicates with the woman and finds out that there is a monster nearby that attacks local animals and eats the local Dryads. The creature is known as a Skyth Tree and that it is nearby. Sven promises to help the Fae because neighbors help neighbors in the wilderness. The woman points at a game trail and tells us that it will lead us straight there.

Sven asks the satyr to show us the way and when the party reaches it, they notice several bones, some possibly dryad, at the base of a large normal looking tree. Kruznic cautions that maybe the tree isn’t dangerous afterall. Sven says he made a promise to help and throws a throwing ax at the tree. The tree bleeds and lets out a wine. Sven throws another ax and roots suddenly spring up from the ground as the tree rushes forward.

The tree attacks Sven, Garin and Kruznic. Kruznic is knocked down and roots grab him, dragging him closer to the trees toothy maw. Lindetheil begins to summon an animal and her bager tries to attack, but misses. The satyr runs up and pulls Kruznic five backwards from danger. Lindethiel’s summoned wolf appears. Sven uses his rage to set his ax on fire and he hits the tree with a flaming ax. Kruznic uses his lance to slice into the tree. Garin attempts to shoot, but misses. The bager runs up and rips the tree to pieces. Sven hails the badger for it’s battle awesomeness.

The satyr thanks them and Kruznic tells him the location of the kingdom, so he can contact us if are ever in trouble again. Lindethieil questions him about whether of not the tantzlewyrm is evil. The satyr explains that he is not openly evil. He warns us to avoid the swamp to the north. Lindetheil explains that we have already been there and describes what she saw to him. He looks surprised at the mention of the horse and he decides to investigate.

They accompany the satyr to the bog where he begins to weep. When they reach the area with the dead horse the satyr begins to pray continuously and becomes frantic. The party quickly gets him out of there. That is when the satyr reveals that that the horse was actually a unicorn.

They all agree to go back for it and give it a proper burial. Kruznic uses his horse to pull the animal out. Looking at the unicorn, Lindetheil can tell that the creature was blinded before it died. She questions the satyr about how they should go about burying it and he says that he will take care of it. Satisfied the party heads back to Svenheim only to discover a flock of slaughtered sheep.

After a year of working hard to found a barony, the following is achieved:

The first year was froth with economic hardships but the leaders laid down a foundation of the barony with a Norse style village and many farms to feed the new stream of settlers.

Svenheim (Town)

Population: 1,250
Base Value: 1,700 gp

1 Housing block
1 Pier
1 Inn
1 Smithy
1 Mill

Svenheim Barony:

1 town
5 hexes
4 roads
4 farms
1 gold mine

One year after the barony founding, Grand Diplomat Lindethiel’s envoys have managed to make contact with a nearby settlement in the east. The settlement is led by Magar Varn and named Varnhold. Everyone can remember him from long ago, when our former party member, Wind Stark bartered with him in order to get a map that we needed. Magar Varn has invited us for a visit to come enjoy the fruits of his labor.

The council debates on whether or not to except his invitation. Baron Sven finally decides to just have High Councilor Hylex write a polite letter thanking him for the the invite but declines due to pressing matters and extends an invitation in return.

TO the north of Svenheim, on the road the party built leading to Oleg’s Post, bandits strike. The bandit that escaped during the fight with the Stag Lord has organised men and is attempting to rob a caravans. Fortunately, the merchants hire mercenaries to guard the caravans and the problem solves itself.

The party sets out to explore to the west of Svenheim and come across an area filled with thorns. As annoying as the thorns are they press on to the west, into the forest. In the forest, they hear noises of a tasmanian devil and Lindethiel tries to track it. She follows it and reaches a pit where the animal is trapped. She can tell that the trap seems pretty old.

Lindethiel throws down a piece of deer sausage and the animal eats it greedily. She can tell the creature is very hostile, being a cornered animal that is of no surprise. She continues to feed the animal and communicates with it using animal speech. After trying for hours to make it friendly she finally succeeds. She ties a rope around it neck until she is able to fully train it. With a new pet for the druid the party returns to Svenheim to secure the animal.

When the party returned with the Stag Lord’s head to Oleg’s Post they are greeted with cheers of triumph. Aleesha the merchant informs her lover Kruznic that a huge caravan will be arriving from Brevoy within two weeks. It will have all the resources and manpower to begin a new nation, one to be ruled, and built, by the charter holders as they see fit.

After the Brevoy caravan arrives advisers speak with the adventurers to help them begin the nation building. The party discusses leadership roles, every member agrees that the leadership council should not be a dictatorship but that all will have a say in important matters. They also agree to be silent to anyone else about the council agreement so that future citizens do not know that the ruler is not an absolute ruler.

After much debate a vote is made for ruler; Kruznic, Sven and Hylex are the nominees. Kruznic wins the vote to become ruler and by default Sven becomes General. However, after more debate, it is decided to make Sven the ruler and Kruznic the general. It seems Kruznic had much more interest in being general of the military and that Sven had more interest in leading the nation.

The other leadership roles are more easily filled as every party member had a role they felt best suited for. Hylex was a shoe in for High Councilor, making him the ultimate communicator for and with the people. Lindetheil’s father is a High Diplomat so that role was in her blood. Calessee took the mantle of High Priestess, a job that suits her charm and oracle abilities. Garian was at first made Assassin but later changed to Spymaster, not a perfect fit for him but he enjoyed the challenges of the role.

Leadership roles left vacant are filled by others outside of the party. Hylex represents the party and uses his persuasion to talk each person into the job. The biggest hold outs are Jhod and Keston Garris. Jhod had no interest in being a leader until Hylex convinced him it is best for the stability of the region and for the best interest of his rediscovered temple. Keston had no interest in being an Executioner and it took some fancy word-smithing by Hylex to bring forth a sense of honor from Keston so that he would help build and protect the new nation.

On Pharast (March) 3rd a new nation was founded, Svenheim Barony was born.

A site was chosen for the capitol, in the hills north of Lake Tuskwater and just south of the gold mine. The new town would be named after the new ruler, Svenheim.

In the next few months much building and hard work was to be done by all, including the council. The barony expanded to the north and to the south by making roads and then farms to feed all the new settlers coming in from Brevoy. In Svenheim houses, piers, inns and a lumber mill are constructed as fast as they could be built by the new citizens.

Baron Sven decreed that ‘there would be a wedding’, and so the annual Gozran Wedding Festival had its beginnings. At the festival the Baron married his love Svetlana. The new baroness would rule by her husband’s side using her kind heart and friendly words to compliment Sven’s more aggressive, direct approach.

Also at the festival General Kruznic married his fiancee’ Aleesha, joining the two after a long courtship froth with long absences from one another.

The new nation’s economy was floundering and Sven suspected that Treasurer Oleg may be the cause of it. He sends Hylex to check up on Oleg and his accounting books but Hylex is confident he found no wrong doings. Despite the economic woes settlers continue to pour in by the hundreds looking for a new life where hard, honest work was to be found.

Through the magical fog Hylax summoned, a man comes running towards us. He says " I’m Bif, the messenger. If you are to deal with the Stag Lord, you will be greatly rewarded." and then quickly runs off. The party stands bewildered but shrug it off and prepare to attack.

Lindetheil begins to summon an eagle, standing behind Kruznic and Sven. From the fort several blind shots are fired into the fog and Kruznic is slightly injured. The party hears someone casting a spell from over the wall and Hylex can tell that it is a summon monster spell.

With the party ready, Hylex casts a spell to project an image of him walking out of the fog. The bandits fire many arrows at the image and it is able to distract the bandits while the party charges the wall. Lindethiel casts warp wood causing the timber wall to create a man-sized opening. The badger through the hole rips one of the bandits throats open.

Linetheil’s summoned eagle flies up and lands on the wall attacking the nearest bow wielding bandit. Sven rages into battle, charging through the wall and knocks one of the bandits backwards. Garin shoots at a bandit atop the wall with an arrow but misses. A bandit’s arrow wizzes towards Garin in return fire and hits him. Inside, a hidden bandit hurdles a dagger inflicting a wicked wound on Sven’s back. A huge bandit slams his big club into Sven, wounding him further. Because Sven is blocking the wall’s opening Kruznic decides to climb it, landing gracefully atop the wall’s catwalk.

Suddenly, one of the bandits comes over to Sven and draws back his weapon. He says “You think you can win this??”. Sven, raging, thinks this is a challenge but is then quickly suprised when then man attacks a nearby bandit! The remaining bandits shoot at the traitor with a puzzled look. Together, Sven and the traitor bandit turn on the huge bandit, wounding him greatly. The huge bandit drops his club and starts to cry. Sven, still raging, swings his axe into the huge bandit’s chest, felling him.

A creature then appears on the wall. Caleesee can tell this is a small fire elemental, able to set anything on fire, vulnerable to spells and cold condition. Lindetheil shoots the elemental with her bow and hits it. The same shifty bandit who attacked Sven with the dagger turns his attention to attack Kruznic, but he fails. Kruznic swings his sword and jabs it into the Stag Lord, injuring him. Hylex casts a spell, causing the Stag Lord to laugh uncontrollably. Kruznic takes advantage of Hylex’s spell and easily dispatches the Stag Lord. The bager uses his teeth and claws to tear one of the remaining bandits to shreds. Lindethiel shoots at the elemental again, this time slaying it. The shifty bandit runs off towards a building.

Without warning, a loud noise echos through the encampment. Lindetheil and Sven earnestly believe there is a red dragon nearby. Hylex knows that it is actually an owl bear. Sven sneaks over to the building where the noise is coming from and peaks through the door. Inside he sees the shifty bandit whom injured him during the battle and watches as he opens a cage with an enraged owl bear inside of it. The shifty guy quickly runs out of the building before anyone can react. Sven courageously charges the owl bear and with a leaping, powerful swing with his ax chops the beast’s head off.

Garin runs up the wall and flips over it, landing on his feet with ease. Looking around, he sees the shifty bandit trying to escape unnoticed. He quickly pursues on the rooftops but the fleeing bandit is quick and is about to get over the wall. Garin raises his gun to shoot but he misses and the man escapes.

Hylex begins to question our newly acquired ally, the traitor bandit. The man says his name is Akiros and explains there is a prisoner held in the basement and that he is the previous Stag Lord. Akiros admits to them being a murderer and a thief. Hylex remembers that he is wanted in Issia. That he was an ex-paladin that killed the girl he was having an affair with. When her husband found out about the affair, she lied claiming she was raped and forced into the affair. When Akios found out he killed them both in a blind rage.

The party decides to visit the previous Stag Lord in the dungeon and ask Akiros to take us there. He leads us to the door way of a room that smells strongly of alcohol. Akiros explains that the man is a druid and is a drunk, but that he is also very dangerous and powerful. He further explains how the new Stag Lord would beat him constantly to keep him in his place. Hylex decides to go in to talk to the prisoner with Akiros accompanying him.

Looking around, Hylex sees several bottles that cover a good bit of the floor and several rations piled up in the corner. “I hear that you are tired of being beat”, Hylex says to the druid. “That’s true…..I was a much better ruler in my day”, he replies. “I bet. I want to get you out of here, but we have to pose you as a prisoner to do so”, Hylex slyly lies. The prisoner looks reluctant, but agrees. Hylex and Akios gags the man, blindfold him and ties the prisoner’s hands.

Hylex, Kruznic and Sven discussing the situation about the ex-Stag Lord prisoner. After much consideration, they decide to execute him for his crimes of murder and banditry. Justice is quickly carried out.

The party arrives back at Oleg’s Post and decided to camp out there for the night. Kruznic is slightly injured because of his curse and Caleesee heals him.

The next morning the party get sets out towards the Stag Lords stronghold and arrive there after a couple of days travel. On the last day of travel they decide to camp out just hours from the stronghold to get a good nights rest. The next day they get to the fort, Lindetheil, Garin and Sven attempt to scout ahead. The area is full of hills and many of the trees look like they have been cleared out. There is a stone path that leads to the fort. Caleesee can remember that sometime between 50-100 years ago this place was a temple of Gyrona.

There is a wall all around the fortress, made of timbers, that has several tiny gaps between it. Inside the walls, there are three tall towers that are all maned by one or more people. Half of one the towers is destroyed and there a high pile of rocks next to the building. The party attempts to sneak acorss the field towards the fortress corner that does not have a watch tower.

The party decides to attack the fortress from the rear, where it is less guarded. While walking across the field to the rear wall, several zombie hands burst from the ground and trip Garin!

Several zombies crawl out of the ground and surround the party. Caleesee remembers that slashing weapons hurt them, they are slow, stupid, and they can see in the dark. Hylex and Sven get bit by a few of the zombies. Sven yells for everyone to run for the wall to get away from the undead.

Lindetheil attempts to run towards the wall but gets bitten by a zombie as she does so. The rest of the party follows soon after just an arrow flies past Lindetheil’s head from the direction of the fort. More arrows fly and another injures her.

From the fort the party hears a shout, “They are coming for the wall, get ready!” All expectations for a surprise attack are dashed.

Garin fires his gun and shoots the bandit with a bow in the nearby tower. Another bandit joins the tower bandit and readies his bow. Kruznic stays in the rear of the party to make sure no one gets left behind with the undead as they all make their way towards the wall. Several arrows find their mark on Caleesee and she drops to the ground unconscious. Lindetheil quickly hurries to her with a healing potion and has her drink it.

Hylex casts fog to provide the party cover right in front of the wall. Sven charges the undead and kills one of the zombies. Lindetheil’s badger launches at a zombie shredding it into chunky, dead bits. Kruznic slashes through two more zombies. Sven swings his axe straight through one of the last standing zombies, killing it. Kruznic slays the remaining zombie as everyone regroups in front of the wall covered by Hylex’s magical fog.

While exploring further south in the Greenbelt, we come across a sword that is as big as a tower. The sword is shinning with power and sticking out of a huge rock. There are vines and thick trees growing all around that conceal it from the party until Lindethiel points it out. In the handle of the sword, there is a stone that seems to be glowing. Lindetheil remembers hearing a rumor that this is a weapon created by the gods and that a wizard came across it long ago. The wizard realized that that it is some kind of of gateway portal. Of course, no one in the party is a wizard or knows how to activate it.

The party continues on and they come to a cliff overlooking a fast moving river. Looking down, we can see what looks like a few people carrying torches crossing the river. Caleesee and Lindetheil can tell when they take a closer look that it is actually several boggards fighting with two wil-o-wisp. The party decides not to interfere. The boggarts die pretty quickly and their bodies float down the river. The wil-o-wisp move on. The party heads down to examine the spot where the boggarts where attempting to cross. Sure enough, there is a shallow spot in the river in that spot, they have discovered a ford across the river. They cross the river and can now see a massive fort sitting on a nearby hill. They figure out fairly easily that this is probably where the Stag Lord resides but decide to explore further west for the time being.

Lindethiel spots four bandits looking fellows while traveling through the woods and the party decides to follow them. After a few days of following them, the bandits stop in the Thorn River encampment that the party had recently cleared out. The bandits look around, obviously searching for loot. The party attempts to parley with the men but they fire arrows in response.

Kruznic charges one of the bandits and kills it instantly. The badger scratches at one of them, wounding them. Sven attempts to charge at one, but ends up tripping and falling into Caleesee instead. Krunzic uses his lance to kill yet another bandit. Sven tackles the remaining bandit and beats him senseless. The party questions the captured bandit but he refuses to devulge any information. Kruznic executes him.

A bad storm takes place and the party decides to camp out in the ruins of the bandit encampment to wait out the storm. For the next two days, Kruznic can hardly sleep and every time he does he has a dream of drowning. Caleesee can tell that he is having some kind of mental breakup because of some sort of spell or curse. Kruznic become fatigued.

Continuing on, the party encounters a muddy shallow cave that is located in the side of a hill. Caleesee stealthy walks towards the cave to check it out. Suddenly a boar runs out of the woods and rams her! Caleesee foes flying through the air and hits the ground hard. Sven charges in rage and cleaves the boar mightly, leaving it barely alive. The boar charges Kruznic and knocks him backwards. The boar falls dead, unable to fight on due to it’s wound.

The party heads back to Oleg’s in attempt to find help for the fatigued and half-crazed Kruznic. Kruznic remembers when they have reached the post that Jarod has left and went to the Temple of Erastil that they found in the woods recently. When they reach the temple they are greeted by Jarod. Kruznic explains the situation and Jarod asks him is there any wizard that he may have pissed off lately. He can tell that Kruznic is under the effects of a spell known as Nightmare and the only spell that can break it is called dispel evil. Kruznic questions whether or not Jarod knows anyone that can perform this spell, but Jarod doesn’t recall anyone.

The party continues to explore the forest when they come across a group of mites. They are on the opposite side of the river bank that is joined to the other side by an old bridge. The party rushes towards them to rid them their evil presence from the lands. Making his way across the old, rickety bridge, Kruznic falls into the the river with his horse. While going through the turbulent current he hits a rock and injures himself. The party follows along the river so to keep Kruznic within sight as he is being swept away. Kruznic is finally able to swim towards shore and finds a way out further down stream.

Lindethiel and Kruznic both traveled back to visit their father and family for reason unknown to the rest of the party. During their absence more building was done at the trading post.

Two weeks later, Lindethiel and Kruznic return from their journey wearing matching robes. Kruznic is now six inches taller, brown eyes, brown hair, with fangs and claws. Kruznic explains to the party that he comes from a family of shape shifters and the werewolf’s wounds caused his shifter blood to activate and show itself in his appearance. The party is quite taken aback by the sudden monstrous change in Kruznic’s looks.

Sceptical, Sven throws Kruznic a silver dagger and tells him to cut himself to prove he is not a werewolf. Kruznic didn’t seem to be that badly injured from it. When Aleesha saw Kruznic, shes demands a more informative explanation. Kruznic explains that Lindetheil gave up her shape shifting abilities long ago which caused them to be passed down to the next born. Since Kruznic is a half blood of the family he only inherited half of the abilities and being bitten by the werewolf triggered those abilities. During the healing process of the werewolf’s attack, Kruznic’s appearance began to change. Sven tells Kruznic to keep the dagger, it’s the one that was given to him as a gift anyway. Sven had taken it after the werewolf attack incase it was need to kill Kruznic if he became a lycan.

The party goes out exploring. While out, Lindethiel saw a black wolf that she could sense was intelligent, roaming in the woods. As we began to set up camp we see a group of hunters in the distance and everyone chooses to not pursue them. Sven and Lindetheil keep first watch as the rest of the party sleeps. They hear several howls and see what appears to be several beady red eyes circling around them in the forest. Lindetheil hears an old raspy voice in the woods say " Help me……Please…….Please……Come out here and find me…….". Lindethiel can tell very easily that these are worgs and although it looks like several pairs of eyes, it is actually one pair of eyes circling us very quickly. Just to be on the safe side, she wakes Kruznic. He shoots several arrows in its direction, but misses it. The worg runs off.

We continue on exploring the next day and come across a river that has a two hundred foot gap in between both sides, the Shike River. There is an old ferry rope that joins the two sides. At the end of the rope there is a sign that reads “Nettle’s Crossing: 2 copper to cross, ring bell for service.”. Kruznic steps forward and rings the bell. An undead creature comes out of the water and walks towards us. He stops before making shore and when asked he informs the party that the Stag Lord and his bandits attacked and drowned him. The creature zombie tells us that if we do not take the stag lord’s life we will be soon joining him in a watery grave. Hylex asks him if we help him will allow us to pass and the creature agrees to let us pass once. Hylex tells him that we will use the pass at another time. After the creature goes back into the water, Hylex the prankster goes back and rings the bell several more times (running away after every time).

Continuing on, the party comes across a group of wagons. All the inhabitants of the wagon train seem to be ripped to pieces. Looking around, Caleesee finds a little boy hiding underneath a wagon. Looking closer, she can see that he has what looks to be a werewolf bite on his shoulder. The party decides to take him to see about getting him healed. Kruznic lets the little boy ride on his horse with him.

Kruznic takes the boy to Restov to get him cured while the rest of the party stay back at Oleg’s. When Kruznic arrives at his church they ask him whether the boy will be working off his debt to the church or if Kruznic will be paying for the boy to be healed. Kruznic agreed to pay for the boy to be healed and decides to look after him for now on. Because the boy has forgotten his name, Kruznic calls him Creed Salvaris. Since Creed has been traveling from one place to another his entire life, Kruznic believes that it would be easier if he just travels with the group for now on.

With good weather ahead the party then starts to search for the Stag Lord, looking southeast towards the river that we have encountered on our journeys. Lindetheil is a little off in predicting the weather and the party ends up being caught in a bad snow storm. We come across a pair of ruined buildings and Hylex thinks that it seems to be a good place to camp out during the storm.

Sven sneaks up to the building and peers inside. Looking in, he can see several large cracks in the walls and water all over the floor. Also, in the middle of the room there is a medium sized creature that is frog like and has no eyes. Sven recognizes it as a Slurk. They are amphibians, tolerate of cold weather and they are covered in a slime that makes it rather difficult to grapple. Looking on his back. Sven can clearly see a saddle.

The rest of the party follows Sven inside of the building. When Hylex sees the creature he is convince that it breathes fire and usually is a mount for ice trolls. Lindetheil wakes the creature and it begans to say what sounds like “Garoom” several times. Hylex immediately dives to the floor and covers his eyes convinced that it will breath fire. But no fire comes forth.

Looking up, Kruznic, Hylex and Caleesee think they see an ice troll crashing through the wall with impeccable strength. Lindetheil and Sven can see clearly that it is a boggard, not a ice troll, that was peering through the crack to look at the party. When it put too much weight on the ruin the wall broke causing him to fall through.

Hylex remembers the ice troll always travel in packs, that they are very hard to kill and that they usually have wolves as pets. From his fetal position , he screams that there are more coming. Caleesee screams and dives to the floor covering her eyes. Kruznic stands up noticing what it really is and draws his weapon. The boggard says something that sounds like “truce” and Kruznic puts his weapon up. Hylex and Caleesee then see that it is not an ice troll and stand to their feet. Sven tries to communicate with the creature but gets frustrated and calls for Hylex.

Hylex figures out after awhile of communicating that his name is Garoom. The party makes a fire and decides to camp with Garoom for the night agreeing to move on the following day.

The party hears some hollering from across Oleg’s post coming from the workers building the additions outside. The workers are hollering about a bear that is coming near them. Kruznic, Garin, Hylex, and Caleesee hurry to go see what is going on. Lindetheil is still having dinner with her elven courtier. Hylex begins to try to communicate with the bear. It begins looks drowsy and inattentive. Sven watches from atop the post’s walls, looking down at the party near the bear. He cautioned them to just leave the animal alone so it will leave.

Kruznic thinks that the bear would make good for furs and food. But Sven tries to convince the party to leave it alone because it is just the animal’s nature and it will go away. However, Kruznic runs over the bear with his horse stabbing it with his lance and Garin shoots at the bear. The bear turns towards Kruznic and knocks him to the ground, nearly killing him with powerful blows. S

From atop the walls, a purturbed Sven yells down at the party, “Stupid dumb asses!”, just before he throws his spear through the bear’s skull, slaying it. Caleesee heals Kruznic. Hylex goes home to bear proof his home. Sven takes the bear as his prize, bringing it to his woman to make sausages and fur blankets from.

Several hunters are in town the next day. One hunter speaks of a trading trail being closed because of boggart creatures.

Caleesee tells Mack Mack that she is growing tired of waiting on the stupid elf and Mack Mack tells her that he is going to get breakfast. Mack Mack crawls underneath the elven tent where Lindetheil is and tells her that Goddess is looking for her. Lindetheil gives him five gold pieces and he leaves. Mack Mack returns to Caleesee with breakfast and five gold pieces. She asks him where he got the gold and he tells her it is a offering. Kruznic informs the party that he is now courting Aleesha.

One of the hunters, his name Larry, tells the party how bandits stole all of his stuff and pushed him down a cliff, leaving him for dead. Sven asks if the hunter if he knows where the stag lord. The hunter replies that he is in the south east near the water.

Sven gives Larry a new bow and arrows to replace those stolen, telling Larry “Neighbors look out for one another out here”. Larry thanks him and proclaims that if the party finds and kills the stag lord, he will give Sven a pick of his one of his three daughters.(Larry lives at C4 with 3 daughters) Larry also tells the party about some strange creature that looks like an amphibian man, a boggart.

With good weather returning the party sets out to explore and camps out for the night in a cave. Kruznic, Sven, and Garin take turns keeping watch. Sven sees a torch out in the distance and tries to quietly wake everyone up. He is not so quiet though and see a ball of flickering light appear in the cave entrance. It looks like a will-o-wisp to Sven. It goes straight for Kruznic and deals some electricity damage. The monster is incrediably hard to hit, the party misses it repeatedly in combat. Sven fights with his axes and Garin shoots at it as it runs past. Lindetheil attmepts to shoot but misses. Hylex convinces the party that we can take this thing, giving them confidence with his oratory.

Garin quick draws his weapon and accidently touches the will o wisp’s orb shocking him some electrical damage. Caleesee heals Kruznic. Sven hits the wisp with his off hand weapon dealing it a glancing blow. Lindethiel tries to hit and misses. The will-o-wisp heads straight for Garin. Garin attacks it with his sword and electricity is sent down his sword shocking him. Kruznic attacks the wisp as it goes past. Sven and Lindethiel attempt to attack and misses. Hylex continues singing to encourage the party. Garin, Kruznic and Sven try to hit and miss. Sven, Kruznic and Garin flank the creature and attack it. The group tactics win out as blows connect and the creature explodes into death.

Hylex spots a pixie in the back of the cave. He tells the creature “Hey” and says that we will not hurt it. The pixie asks what we are doing here and Hylex explains about the will-o-wisp. The pixie tells him that it will share its cave and offers him food. Hylex asks if there is anything that it needs and the pixie tells him the only creatures that really bother anyone are the mites. Hylex tells him that we are clearing the lands of them.

Sven interjects and points at the pixie to proclaim, “Your kind has caused us alot of trouble!”. Hylex asks the pixie and if he gives him something will they stop playing pranks on him. The pixie tells him he likes stories, magic and songs. Hylex decides to stay up and tell him stories while the party sleeps. Sometime during the story, the stupid bard really offends the pixie. The pixie attempts to cast a lesser geas on the bard in anger but Hylax is able to fend off the effects of the fae magic. The pixie immediately flees and dissapears.

The party continues exploring. The party encounters a group of 13 mites that going around screaming “doom!” at nearby grasshoppers. Hylex attempts to communicate with them in hopes to convince them to just leave the Greenbelt. They cast “doom!” six times at Hylex. The party attacks and slays all of them will shocking ease.

The party continues on with exploring. Late that evening the party meets a hunter walking through the woods. Sven asks him how the hunting is going. The hunter tells him its going well. Sven asks him what is in these parts. The hunter tells him the woods are full of bears and sometimes they bother him. The hunter then asks if the party would like to camp with him and Hylex quietly tells the party that he seems okay.

The hunter tells of a nearby river that many people die attempting to cross called the Shrike River. Kruznic, Sven and Garin take turns taking watching. The hunter seems a little weary about the woods to Kruznic. On Kruznic’s watch the Hunter expresses his suspicion of something being in the woods. The hunter tells him that he is going to climb a nearby tree to get a better look, but falls out of the tree injuring himself. Kruznic peers into the darkness and thinks he sees something but his eyes are playing tricks on him.

Kruznic feels a hot breath down his neck and turns around to see a werewolf standing in the same place where the hunter was standing. The werewolf bites him. Kruznic gains lycanthropy and he screams out in pain.

None of the party wakes up to the sound of his screaming. After, a few seconds Lindethiel, Caleesee and Sven wake up as the screams from Kruznic getting killed continue. Lindethiel and the bager attempt to attack but miss. Lindethiel drags Caleesee away from combat. Caleesee stands up and wakes Garin. Hylex wakes up also. Kruznic gets clawed gravely by the werewolf several more times.

Hylex remembers that werewolves are only hurt by silver, very fast, very intellegent, cunning, on nights on the full moon they are in the werewolf side is in complete control Hylex also recalls tales about an entire village that got infected by lycanthropy.

Sven attacks in a rage to save Kruznic but the wounds his axes score on the werewolf immediately heal. Lindetheil attempts to hit but misses. The werewolf bites Sven, Hylex continues to inspire the party with stunning oratory. Sven barely knicks the werewolf with his weapon. Kruznic attempts to hit but misses. The werewolf attacks Sven and knocks him to the ground. Sven, pissed, throws his axes away and grabs a hold of the werewolf wrestling it to the ground. Sven now has him in a grapple and he is the only on that can be attacked by werewolf for now. Garin tries to shoot, but misses. Kruznic stabs the werewolf with his his silver dagger. The werewolf latched on to Sven with his claws and pulls off a big piece of flesh. Sven shrugs off the pain during his rage and pins the werewolf making it unable to fight back. Kruznic administers the coup de grace with his silver dagger.

While the party explores the wilderness to the southeast, Hylex finds a old merchant path and believes that we should travel that way. Lindetheil informs the party that there is a tribe of barbarians that are not terribly nice and also thinks that this is a good way to go. Up ahead we see something that looks to be a large bear laying in the middle of the road. Looking closer, Lindethiel can tell that it is a owl bear and clutch in its hand is an expensive pair of pearls.

Lindethiel reaches out to grab the pearls. Sven, being wiser than the druid in this situation and smelling a trap yells out, “Don’t touch that woman!” As she picks it up (ignoring the warning), she can see that it has a bell attached to it because it was a trap. Suddenly, we see several bandits flip up out of concealed holes covered with dirt, twigs and gravel. There are several of them that are shooting arrows at the party. They let arrows fly and injure Caleesee, Hylex, Kruznic and knock Lindetheil to the ground.

Garin shoots at one of the guys in the back. Sven charges one of them and uses his axe to cut into its chest. Kruznic charges on horseback runs his lance through one bandit, leaving him dangling lifeless from the lance.

The bandits shoot several more flights of arrows at Caleesse and Garin. Caleesee heals everyone and brings Lindetheil back to consciousness. Sven charges a bandit and runs him over, while at the same time burying his axe into the now nearly dead bandit’s stomach. Kruznic charges and kills the guy Sven hit.

Several arrows fly and hit Caleesee as bandit calls of “Kill the healer!” echo through the woods. Lindethiel pushes the healer down and covers her to prevent her from becoming a pin cushion of death. Sven rushes across the woods and slings his axe at another ambusher, wounding him. Kruznic charges another and kills them immediately. Garin shots his guns and wounds another bandit. Sven chops off the head of a bandit, grabbing it, and runs up shaking the dead bandit’s head at another terrified bandits. Kruznic gets shot by arrows and falls to the ground, because he is made of fail sauce.

Caleesee heads towards Kruznic. Sven charges in rage at the bandit who knocked out Kruznic, severed head still in his hand. Garin attempts to kill off one of the three remaining bandits. Kruznic gets back on his mount and impales one of the ambushers. Alas, the bandit corpse is stuck on his lance. The two remaining guys attmept to flee. The bager chases after one of them and kills them. Kruznic tries to convience the remaining guy to surrender. Garin shoots him in the ankle and then stabilizes him for questioning. Caleesee heals the captive and Kruzinic binds him and then puts him on his horse.

Hylex pulls aside all of the party except for Kruznic. He expresses concern that the bandit
“workers” will soon outnumber us and be able to retaliate.

Kruznic begins questioning the prisioner. He finds out that his name is Coma. Kruznic offers him food in exchange for answers. Coma has no real answers about the leader of the group.

The party continues to explore. Lindetheil sees torches in the distance that appear to be people traveling. The party tries to sneak up to them. Sven sneaks closer and can make out a pair of floating fiery skulls. Sven recognizes these as will-o-wisps. The party choses to avoid them.

The party has the captive, Coma, him lead them to where his camp and the bandit slaves are kept.

Kruznic rides his mount into the bandit encampment, finding it void of bandits, saying to the slaves that we are not there to harm them and offers to let them come with us. There are two dwarven girls in the incampment, one named Apple and one named Carrie. They grab the mule and follow us. Hylex begins talking to both them and learns a little about their past. We head back to Oleg’s and when we arrive Aleesha is there waiting for Kruznic. Kruznic introduces Coma to the rest of the “workers” and puts him to work. After he gets done he goes to see Aleesha. Garin tells the “workers” that for everytime that call Kruznic “master” he will give them each a gold piece.

Lindetheil gets a summon from her elven courtier. She cleans up and heads to see him. Svetlana manage to find a masterwork breastplate that has several tigers fighting on the front of it for Sven. Sven reconizes the symbol is the symbol for a tiger lord barbarian. He gives her an “extra special thank you” that evening.

Aleesha brought Kruznic a book of knowledge about the elven side of his family. Aleesha mentions that she has noticed several elven nobility in the area and asks Kruznic if he thinks it is some kind of message to the sword lords. She also asks if he could have good relations with them in the future. He believes he could have good releations with the elves until they had stolen from him and called him white trash. Aleesha convinces him to go speak to them and find where they stand.

Garin goes and hangs out with the workers that night. They attempt to get him to gamble and he refuses. Instead, he convinces them to go and have a few drinks. Caleesee builds Mack Mack, her fanatical kobold worshipper, a bed next to the fireplace in her log cabin.

Kruznic goes with Aleesha to speak with the elven nobility but they find a guardian barring them enterance. The gay fellow tells him that the master is engaged and currently indisposed. Kruznic tells him to come by for tea later or to come speak with him when he is ready.

While Kruznic was gone in Restov, Hylex heard around the trading post that some monks and clerks of a lesser god of extortion, Gyrona, are on the northern edge of the Tuskwater River. Supposedly, they are behind all the banditry in the area. Also, he heard a friend of a friend’s brother was a wizard and went missing losing a spell book somewhere in some underbrush.

Lindetheil goes out into the woods and comes across a group of elks. They look like something had attacked them. One of them is almost dead, one is missing its antlers, one is injured, two have broken legs and one of them is fine. They are all covered in mud and twigs like they had fallen down a hill.

Garin and Kruznic begin drawing up plans to build a new catapult at Oleg’s. They plan to build it when they have more money.

Lindtheil comes back from the woods and informs the party of the elk that were attacked. She believes that it must of been a winged creatures because she did not see any tracks leading away from them. The party goes to investigate. The elk that was almost dead is now dead. Lindetheil tries to speak with them and asks them what happened to them. The elk seem to think that the forrest is hungry and it is chasing him. Caleesee heals their wounds. Lintheil has the elk show her what woods “attacked” them.

The party gathers and goes about 20 miles southeast of the post, just into the forest where we believe the elk are from. As we are investigating we discover a giant plant and Lindtheil thinks it is a treant. Hylex, the ever learned and observant bard, looks a little closer and tells Lindethiel that is actually a shambling mound. He knows that it has resistant to electricity and fire. Also, it is intellegent, very territorial, and that it can swim.

Kruznic mentions that he is going to chop it up and the shambling mound attacks him! Kruznic and Lindetheil got grappled. Garin shot at the creature and Sven attempted to sling his axe at him. As Kruznic is being slung back and fourth in the air he pulls out his sword and slices off one of the roots. Lindetheil sends her pet in to attack and he misses. Sven tries to attack and misses. The creature tears Kruznic into pieces killing him without mercy. Lindetheil’s badger fianlly kills the monster in a fit of brutal rage. Lindethiel takes the elven blade from Kruznic.

The party carries Kruznic’s broken body back to Oleg’s and they put him in his house. That night, Oleg’s goes dark and all the fires go out. The temperature falls rapidly to bitterly cold conditions. The party comes out to see what is going on. Hylex, Lindethiel and Caleesee cast light on certain objects in camp. Caleesee and Hylex detected an unatural magical pressence. The party notices that Oleg is now frost bitten and he is taking lethal damage. Caleesee casts endure elements and Oleg begins to heal.

Everyone crowds into Kruznic’s house as they figure out something is happening in there and attempt to guard his body. The party sees a shadowy figure standing next to Kruznic’s body. One more shadowy figure slowly comes from Kruznic’s mouth. The shadowy figures attack Caleesee and Lindtheil. Lindetheil uses a magic stone to fight off the figures and Caleesee channels positively. One of the creatures explodes. Hylex sings words of encourgements. Lindetheil uses her magical stones again and Sven uses a cure light potion as a positive energy weapon and the last of the evil shadows explodes. Suddenly, the nearby torches light up and the party can see sunshine coming through a nearby window. Sven shoves another positive energy potion into Kruzinic’s mouth to kept other shadows from coming out.

Oleg seems to think that Hylex had spoken to him several hours ago and he had came to check on him. Hylex steps outside the cabin and tries to explain to him that it was only few minutes ago that he had spoken to him. Oleg seems to not believe Hylex. Lindetheil looks at Kruznic and sees that he is breathing. She calls for Hylex. Hylex comes in and lightly slaps Kruznic on the face. Kruznic wakes up and Sven holds his axe near Kruznic throat thinking his body is possessed by some devil. The party demands for Kruznic to tell us his name and finally he says “Kruznic.”. Kruznic explains that he does not know how he is alive. He claims he saw all the shadowy figures we saw and then a big bright light, then he woke up.

Kruznic looks around and he is not able to find his elven blade. Hylex tells him Lindethiel has it. Hylex and Caleesee step away. Lindetheil refuses to give the blade to him and refuses to tell them where it is. After awhile of arguing, Hylex explains to Kruznic that him and Lindtheil are half brother and sister. Kruznic begins to question Lindetheil on her motive for being here and begins to think that she is only here to take it from him. Kruznic finally decides to just let her have it. The party learns that she has other motives that are unknown and other than ridding the lands of bandits. Lindethiel tells the party that she needs to leave to go report to someone and that she will gone for awhile. Hylex decides to go with Lindethiel to Restov. When Hylex gets to Restov he, like a sneaky noisy bard, begins to do research on Lindetheil’s and Kruznic’s family.

While Lindetheil and Hylex were gone construction continued at Oleg’s post. Sven and Svetlana’s log cabin is finished, they move in.

When Lindetheil returns a couple of weeks later, she is following by a handsome elven noble and 5 other people that are his servants. Hylex tells us that they have returned to do something for our party. Kruznic continues to be angry about the theft of his sword. The party decides to go exploring and to searching for the Tatzetworm that is otherwise known as the “boogy man” that Oleg wants as a conversation piece at his trading post. They are normally found in caves, but not in open areas. They are known to be posioness and if the party kills it they will recieve 600 gold. The party consults their map and begins to look for possible spots where caves are located. While we are exploring, Lindetheil notices that we have been followed for awhile by a large creature that seems to be tracking the group. She can tell after awhile that it is an owl bear.

We track the owl bear and Sven sneaks up on it to find it sleeping. Garin shoots it from a distance. Lindetheil attempts to shoot it from a distance. Kruznic attempts to attack, but instead rolls with horse and falls to the ground. Sven runs up throws an axe at it telling it to ‘wake up!". Garin shoots and blows the creatures hand off. Kruznic tries to hits but misses. Sven slings his war axe and slices the owl bear’s head off, thus collecting another head for his totem pole.

Looking into the distance, we see a huge cliff. At the base of the cliff we see ruins and a broken crumpled stair case that leads into the cliff face. There is also a small pool with pretty green water in it. In frount of us, is a huge valley. Coming from the valley we hear a huge bear let out a loud roar. Searching for awhile, we notice some dire bear tracks. The party hears yet another loud roar. Lindethieil thinks it is rather strange that they would roaring like that so many times. Hylex expects that the bear is just very mad at the moment or maybe he is just like that all the time.

The party searches for the dire bear. The dire bear begins to charge through the woods. Sven stands firmly ready to intercept it with his axe ready. It charges enraged, straight into Lindetheil and attacks knocking her to the ground with her head in it’s maw. Sven attempts to swing at it, but instead misses and becomes prone. Caleesee heals the non deserving elf that is always making racist comments about half-elves and Lindetheil wakes up in the bears mouth. Kruznic takes his lance and slices the bears arm off. Hylex coats Lindethiel with a magical lube spell and attempts to free her, but the bear doesn’t let go. Lindetheil attempts to hit and misses. The bager runs up and attacks.

Sven runs up, jabs his war axe into the bear’s mouth and forces it to drop the poor elf before she is chewed up dead. The dire bear then heads towards Kruznic and malls him. Garin runs over to him, shoots in the air and uses his hot gun to stop Kruznic from bleeding out. Lindethiel stabs at the bear from the ground. Lindethiel sends her bager to attack and he scratches it leaving a bloody wound. The dire bear, enraged, swallows the bager whole!

Garin blows a hole through the dire bears head, but its still alive. Lindetheil stabs at the bear and the bear falls over on top of her. As the bear hits the ground it becomes a human and then it just turns into ash. In the ash, is Lindetheil’s bager.

Kruznic comes up to the pool and a sticks his hand in it. His wounds are suddenly healed up.

The party returns to Oleg’s post and reports back to Jerod that we had found his lost temple.

The party finds themselves covered in mud, squatting in a room with a low ceiling that is covered in garbage and dead mites. Looking around, they see the way out through a long tunnel going upward and a small cramp hole in the wall, filled with roots and mud. Also, we see big clumps of green eggs in piles. Sven cuts a bigger hole through the root wall and the party enters into the room beyond.

In the middle of the room, there is a big table with a bunch of twigs, sticks, rocks and gravel arranged in a way that looks like a map. There is a bright red table cloth on the table and a potato sack underneath. Also, sitting on the table is a reptilian statue. Looking around they also notice that there is a very large hole that is fifteen foot across. There is a giant tick like creature standing in the room with a mite riding on the back of it with a lance in it’s hands and three more mites standing close by.

Kruznic runs up and hits one of the mites with such force that he slings it into the mite standing nearby. Kruznic then sees that across the large hole there is six more mites. Suddenly, the party hears “doom!!!” echoing through the room. Kruznic begins to shake all over from the spell effects. All the mites attack him and the tick grapples him, slinging him in the air. He also becomes diseased. Lindetheil tells the badger to “sick em” and kicks the badger at the mite riding on the tick. The bager rips the rider mite to shreds.

Sven runs up and grapples the tick off of Kruznic. Sven begins to wrestle in the mud with the tick. Kruznic is no longer grappled and in anger he slices another one of the mites in half. The room echos once again with cries of “doom!!!” and Sven begins to shake from spell effects. The badger rips another mite into pieces and claws at the tick. Sven tries to use his hand axe to kill the tick and misses.

Kruznic runs and leaps over the fifteen foot hole barely making it. He lands on tops of a mite, squishing it. A giant centipede comes out of the hole and snatches Kruznic by the stomach as its pincer pierce through his abdomen, critically wounding him. Lindetheil fires at the centipede piercing its skin. Kruznic falls down the hole bleeding to death. A mite throws a dart at Lindetheil. Caleesee heals Kruznic and the party. Kruznic stands up and attacks Centipede in desperation only to be knocked back to the ground by the huge creature.

Lindetheil fires more arrows at the centipede. The badger runs up to attacked the tick and becomes diseased. The centipede knocks Caleesee to the ground. Sven stops wrestling the tick to stand up and slice it in half with his war axe. Lindetheil backs away with her badger. The centipede crawls over Caleesee and heads towards the badger, Lindetheil and Sven. The centipede slices through the badger wounding it badly. Next it attacks Lindetheil sending her to the ground for a dirt nap.

Sven runs up and slices the centipede head off with his axe. He chops off the head of the centipede and shows it to the mites causing them to run away. Looking across the pit the party sees several kobolds that are chained up that looked like they were tortured and all are dead except one. The party climbs over the fifteen foot hole to free a kobolds. Kruznic holds up the idol to him. The kobold says " Which ever kobold possessed the idol becomes the chieften." The kobold looks at Tuck Tuck and says “You Tuck Tuck, me Mack Mack.”.

Sven and Kruznic began questioning Tuck Tuck and Mack Mack about their tribe. They learn that every since the new chieften came into power problems have been started. Kruznic starts to believe that the raven is some form of a demon because the problems started when it came around and starts thinking about killing the new chief. The party begins discussing what to do and start to head back to the kobold cave.

The party is greeted by the lower cheif, Sut’Scale. He asks several times for the idol to remove the curse. Caleesee dazzled the group of kobolds with her charisma and tells them that no matter what happens she wants them to stand behind her and that she wants to take the idol directly to the higher cheif, Nak’Pick.

The big group of kobolds follow Caleesee and the rest of the party to the chief. Nak’Pick reaches his hands out for the idols and Kruznic tries to slice him and half but he misses. The group of kobolds surround and kill Nak’Pick. Caleesee and Kruznic pull Sut’Scale to the side and explain that we will protect them. Sven tells Caleesee that the kobolds should trade silver for trinkets at Olegs. The kobolds began to refer to Caleesee as their goddess and she gains Mack Mack as a permant follower (worshiper).

We began to travel back towards Oleg’s. We come across a herd of elks being chased by a tazmainian devil. Lindetheil tries to tame it, but fails. The party continues on.

We then arrive back at Oleg’s just before a predicted blizzard. While we were gone Svetlana got a really good deal on a dwarven waraxe for Sven. The axe is entirely made of ice and when you hit something it breaks, but it will form again in one day. Mack Mack found Caleesee a light pick. Kruznic goes to the priest to get healed of his tick disease. Kruznic talsk to the sargent to tell him that we have formed an alliance with the kobolds and to not kill them on site.

We notice that are several hunters and trappers that are talking about several local events. Sven warns them about the bear traps that we came across. One of the hunter knows the guy who did it. His name is Breg and Caleesee knows that that is the name of a nobleman who hunts in the area. Kruznic tells the hunters to start leaving the kobolds away. Kruznic then hears someone talking about cultist that wear silver amulet that have a stag on it. They worship hideous animal demon.

Kruznic goes out to check on the workers. Deonte seems to be ready to go back and Kruznic removes the shackles. He also removes Undred’s shackles.

After the blizzard Kruznic leaves for Restov to collect the money for bringing peace to the Kobolds and to visit his family. Kruznic’s travels will take him two weeks before returning to the post.

As we are leaving Oleg’s to explore more parts of the land. Caleesee sees a dead animal in the distance off the side of the road. The party goes to investigate and sees that it is a grizzly bear that looks like it exploded from the inside. Looking around Sven sees several tracks leading away from Oleg’s, finds remains of the ice trolls in the bear’s claws and finds a piece a spear. He notices that they are the tracks of the ice troll. Lindethiel remembers that they are intellegent (enough to wear armor), hearty and hard to kill. Sven knows that you need fire acid to kill them because the regenerate.

The party heads back to warn the people at Oleg’s to put some extra guards out to be safe. Sven thinks it would be a good idea to throw deer sausage in the woods as a distraction if the trolls attacks. Kruznic thinks it would a better idea to sit behind the wall and shoot. Unfortuanatly, Sven is more convincing in the arguement.

The party continues to explore and stumbles on a camp site. Kruznic can tell that the fire is at least ten days old at the camp site. The party only find some disguarded bones at the campsite, as if some one was skinning a deer there. We then make camp next to a nearby river.

The next day, we continue to explore. In the distance, the party sees a glowing man that spouts with fire. Lindetheil notices some mushrooms nearby that are not normally known to grow here. As we get closer we see that is a two headed goat man made of stone , surrounded with lights. Both heads are spouting fire. Upon closer inspection, we notice that the statues seem to be painted. Sven attempts to get closer unseen, but fails. He began to dance and sings. Lindetheil suddenly thinks that she saw the statue move and also that there are dragons nearby.

Kruznic rides up as several roots shoot up out of the ground and attempt to grab him, but the all miss. He scoops up Sven and rides off. As he leaves, he notices that the statue is holding a halberd weapon. As soon and Sven gets far enough away, he stops dancing. Lindethiel tells the party that it may very well be a fairy dragon and Sven throws out gold coins in attempt to talk to them. Lindetheil suddenly thinks she hears singing and looks around with a confused expression. Sven then throws deer jerky out also and nothing happens. Sven notices that both his coins and jerky have dissapeared. Lindetheil is still supicious of the statue and Sven throws out silver coins instead of gold in a last ditch effort to communicate with the fae.

Almost as soon as they hit the ground they dissapear. Lindetheil sees several tracks down in the (that are very recent) when she looks down. Caleesee notices the tracks as being from a grig or a pixie. She knows they are tiny, not evil, micheivious,that they crave alcohol, shiny things, song and dance. Kruznic and Sven try to communicate with them once again. Kruznic notices then that all of his clothes have turned purple. Kruznic pours ale in a cup and holds it out in his hand, but nothing happens. Caleesee attempts to sing to try to get them to come out, but sucks at it horribly. Lindetheil in then surrounded by a cloud of fumes and she falls off her horse. Kruznic goes to examine the statue. He notices several paintings on the statues. One of them Caleesee notices that it is a painting of a demon that is the servant of Lammashtu. Kruznic uses his horse to knock the statue to the ground. The party continues to explore.

Sven (" the guy who almost rolled three twenties in a row") sees several elk in a nearby field. Also, he spots a guy in a nearby tree that is most likely trying to hunt. Sven tries to sneak up on him and succeeds. Lindetheil steps on the a loud dry twig and causes all the elk to run away. The guy in the tree begans to curse at Lindetheil and she laughs. Sven continues to sneak up to observe. Kruznic rides up to the guy that was in the tree with Caleesee following. Kruznic asks what the problem is and the guy tells him that some stupid elf messed up his hunting. Kruznic gives him 20 g for his trouble. The guy asks what we were up to out here and Kruznic explains that we are clearling the lands and Lindetheil mumbles something about clearly the lands of rednecks. The party learns that the guy’s name is Forrest and he tells the party about some strange people that are chanting and doing evil magic inside a nearby ruined barn to the north.

As the party goes to explore the ruined barn that Forrest said was the place that the people were chanting in. Sven smells a weird odor as they come up on the barn and Caleesee reconizes the smell as incents that are used for chanting. Sven and Lindetheil peaks through the boards to observe. They see several guys in black robes, standing next to a fire with a dead animal, chanting.

The party enters the barn and Caleesee notices that these guys are worshippers of Phrasma, the goddess of natural death. They ask if the party would like to join them next to the fire while they are discussing the death of a hedge hog and they agree. They invite us to join them for a meal. Sven asks how to get in contact with them in the future and they tell him that have a temple in Restov. A small conversation about the priests setting up a shrine or temple at Oleg’s is discussed. The party decides to camp there for the night.

The next day, the party tells the group good bye and they cast “bless” on all of us. The party continues to explore and find a totem that has foxes and wolves chasing owls. Sven reconizes it as a barbarian territorial totem for the Oogamoggie. The party continues on exploring. At some point of the day, Lindetheil notices that Sven has wondered offand she sees some ruins of a small buildings in the distance. Sven sees a pile of rocks diliberatly piled close by in some woods and he waves the party over to look. He explains that it is most likely a burial mound. Sven moves a few rocks around but leaves it alone there after in respect for those buried.

The party goes on to explore the ruins and we see a small halfling female child run away from us out of the buiding. We can see that she has sticks in her hair and she jabbering. She runs into the nearby woods. Kruznic follows her and grabs the girl. She attempts to bite him and appears to be wild. Sven looks in the building and sees that there are several chewed bones inside. Kruznic explains that he is not here to hurt her and she calms down a little bit. He sees several scars on her. Lindetheil follows and holds out a piece of deer jerky. She snatches it from her and eats it hungerly. Kruznic and Lindetheil give her more food. Kruznic tells her that if anything happens to her, she needs to come find him. He gives her extra food and lets her go. She runs off.

Sven continues to look through the den in the ruins. He notices that several scratch marks are all over. Caleesee enters the den and looks around. The girl comes back to the den and growls at her. Caleesee tries to calm her and the girl stops growling. Kruznic enters the den and finds some human bones located underneath a board and a chewed long bow. None of teeth marks looks like halfling teeth mark. Looking around, he sees several large scratch marks on the walls like a large animal had once occupied this place. Lindetheil tries to communicate with her and nothing really works. Kruznic has plans to come back with a cage to capture and reform her. Lindetheil is appalled at the idea explaining that it is the girl’s natural state to be wild. She notices that bad weather is coming and the party decides to head back to the barn when we found the guys in black robes. The party waits out a snow storm in the ruined shelter.

The next morning the party continues on. They come on a traveling caravan that has about 25 gypsies and notice that they have taken a prisioner. Caleesee begins to question the gypsies about the prisioner asking what he has done. They tell her that this guy attempted to rob their caravan. Caleesee thinks that this prisioner may be the guy that Keston Garris is looking for. She asks if the party can take him and explains that we reform prisioners. Kruznic pulls the guys on his horse keeping him tied. He gives him food and furs. Caleesee notices that his feet have frost bite and she cast endure elements on him. She also attempts to heal him and she knows that with a few days of rest he should be okay.

Kruznic tries to communicate with him and he tells Kruznic that he is innocent. Kruznic can tell that he is lying and he punches him in the face. The guy tells Kruznic that is innocent once agian. Kruznic asks him if he is right or left handed. The guy replies that is right hand and Kruznic steps on his right handed and raises his sword above it as if to cut it off. But it was a bluff to intimidate the prisoner into telling the truth, the gamble failed and the man kept his hand. Caleesee asks him what he name is and replies that his name is Undred (which means he may not be the guy Keston is looking for).

As the journey continues, we came across a pond and Lindetheil found a pair of large tracks. She notices them as the tracks of a large owl bear. Suddenly, we see the owl bear about fifty feet in front of us on a frozen lake. Kruznic charges him and strikes him with his lance. The owl bear knocked down his lance and picked him up and slammed him in the frozen ice still keeping his fist on him. Sven runs up and strikes him with his axe. Lindetheil runs forward and hits him with her scimitar. The ice can’t support all the weight and cracks around them and they all fall into freezing water. Caleesee rushes forward and heals Kruznic. The owl bear falls in the water and climbs out. Sven climbs out after the creature and uses his axe to slice the owl bear in twine. The barbarian takes another skull for his totem pole.

The party continues on. While exploring, Sven gets off his horse to go take a piss. He gets his foot caught in a bear trap. He forces it open with great strength and Caleesee heals him. Kruznic and Caleesee get off their horse (for some reason). They both get caught in a trap also! Sven forces both of the traps open. As the party looks around they see several traps and several dead animals. As we look around more, we notice that most of this area is just covered with traps. Caleesee heals the prisioners frost bite completely and the party heads towards Oleg’s.

When they get back Kruznic learns that one of the captured bandits, Deonte tried to escape. He goes to talk to the rest of the bandits and ask them why they did not run with him. Tavaris tells him that he gets a steady meal here. Jon says that it is better than life on the outside. He also asks them how they would deal with Deonte if they were in his shoes. Jon says that you should teach him a lesson. Tavaris says that maybe you should forgive them. Kruznic thinks that he should maybe meet him in the middle and he gives them the day off.

Kruznic goes to see Deonte and asks him what tried to escape for. Caleesee follows to see what Kruznic is going to do. He tells Deonte that he has done all of this nice stuff for him and asks him is this how he repays him. Kruznic tells him he is gonna make his life hell for a few weeks to show him how good he had it. He also tells him that if he betrays him again he will have his head. Kruznic tells the guards that Deonte’s feet and hands shackled. His feet and hands should be only far enough apart for him to work. He should also not be allowed to socialize with any of the other workers and he should go straight back to confinment after he is done working. Also, he is not allowed to have hot food only bread and water.

Kruznic and Sven determine that the lodging cabin is too far too cramped for them and Sven’s woman (Svetlana) so they starting making plans to build six log cabin homes. Worried, Kruznic also says that he is going to pay the other two workers (Jon and Tavaris) 2 silver a day, so they will feel like workers instead of slaves. Moody the merchant had arrived back at the post with the party’s building supplies and some labors we hire to help build the additions to the post.

Lindetheil, with Sven’s help, determine that nearly a week of bad weather is on the way. So after six days of being snowbound in the trading post the party then decides to head south into the Kamelands to investigate why the kobolds of the region are causing trouble.

While exploring, Sven finds a well hidden cave entrance and derelict man-made cut stones around it. He calls the rest of the party over. We enter the cave and notices there is no roof to the cave, but vines have grown enough that it covers as a roof. Also, we notice a gigantic shaft in front of us that is about forty feet down and with about a foot of water at the bottom. Sven and Kruznic climb down. They don’t see anything that interesting at the bottom of the shaft.

The hole looks to be man made to Kruznic and there are the three tunnels leading off. Caleesee climbs down the hole after them. Lindetheil tells the party she thinks going down a hole is a terrible idea, perfect for an ambush, and turns around to inspect the area one last time. She notices a pixie on a nearby flower but it is no where to be seen when she goes to look for it. She tells the party again that she feels uncomfortable about it the shaft, but she goes down anyway. As soon as she gets to the bottom the rope falls with her. Sven then sees a shiny pebble fall down and hit him in the head, it is a tiny nugget of gold. The party can hear the sound of scrapping metal coming from one of the tunnels. Kruznic climbs up the side of the shaft to reattach the rope.

Out of one of the tunnels comes a nine foot tall, fury Minotaur with a great axe. As he walks he drags his axe along the tunnel wall making sparks and deep gouges. He seems to be irritated at the light. Lindetheil remembers that menator are man eaters, hostile and are known to live in dark places. Sven readies his shield and war axe as he calls out that we wish not to fight, but to talk. Kruznic starts to climb down the rope to help. The Minotaur charges the party!

Lindetheil walks up slicing the Minotaur with a scimitar and Sven swings his axe at it. The Minotaur runs up and upper cuts Sven with the great axe. Then, he bucked Lindetheil with his horns, throwing her up in the air and she lands with a thunk in the water. Caleesee channels immediately healing Sven and Lindetheil. Lindetheil’s bager runs up, jumps on the Minotaur’s face and digs his claws in, pulling its face completely off, making the kill, before it lands gracefully. Caleesee notices that the spot where the axe drug across the wall there is gold veins revealed, they have found the old gold mine rumored to be south of Oleg’s.

The party climbs back up the wall. Sven attempts to communitcate with the pixie and nothing happens. Sven throws all evidence of man-made stones down the shaft to help conceal the mine from others.

The party moves on. Walking through the hills Lindetheil finds some 5 dead kobolds and 3 dead mites. There are kobold tracks leading into the location but not out. There are nine mite tracks that lead out. There is also blood everywhere and it is easy to tell that a battle happened here. In the distance the party can see a big tree that occupies a good bit of the area. We head towards the tree where the mites tracks lead off to. Up head, coming towards us we see no less than fifteen mites. As the past by, a small rabbit runs by and the mites run and stab it immediately saying “doom” as they kill it. Caleesee picks up that they are casting spells at the rabbit when they say “doom”. They walk past us without doing it anything.

Kruznic and Aleesha go on a hunt to look for food. While walking, they noticed a grove a trees. Aleesha walks towards it, with a confused expression on her face. She tells Kruznic that she could of swore she saw a glowing ruby in there. Walking into the trees, they see a giant scarecrow looking down on them from a nearby mound. As Kruznic gets closer, a tree branch with hardened spikes swings out and hits him, knocking him off his horse.

Aleesha hops off her horse and binds his wounds. They hear a strange noise coming from the woods. Kruznic then notices several more scarecrows standing on a nearby hill. Kruznic decides to head back and tell the party. Aleesha agrees and says they need a better tracker to continue. They then get into a conversation about Lindetheil and her racism. Aleesha questions whether or not Kruznic should trust her since she hates his kind. Kruznic replies that he trusts her anyway reguardless of her beliefs.

Sven goes to check on the progress of the building they told the captives to build. He begins to help them out by intimidating them to work harder like the ‘slaves’ they are. One of the bandits works so hard he gets hurt and Jarrod thinks that it would be dumb to heal the bandit and recommends that we put the guy on bed rest for a few days. Sven dismisses Jarrod as useless and calls over Caleesee whom heals the bandit anyway and tells him to get back to work.

Lindetheil decides to help also, but instead thinks that it would be a good idea if the bandits tied the wood together with a vine. During construction a vine somehow got caught on fire from a captive’s torch, so of course so did the building. Sven tells Kruznic when he returns that the captives did it. Kruznic tells them all to get some sleep and start again tomorrow. He then goes out and the woods to hunt again, to prove to Aleesha to he can find something. He comes back with a squirrel and makes her some squirrel stew.

The next day, the party returns to the where Aleesha and Kruznic had sited the giant scarecrows. They notice one with set of tracks with one small track and one big one. Sven notices it as the track of the mud giants. He remembers that mud giants smell horrible, some what itellegent, they love to set traps and they are loners. They also like to make horrible noises to scare people. Lindetheil begins to look around for traps and finds 3 pit traps with spikes all the way down.

The party follows the giant tracks into a hilly area and they find more scarecrows up ahead. Suddenly, the party sees one of the scarecrows move. Sven throws an ax into the scarecrow taking off it’s head to reveal it is nothing but a dummy. Kruznic charges another scarecrow with his lance and destroys that scarecrow to reveal it is also a dummy.

Suddenly a rock rains down on Sven bouncing off of him. The party looks up to see the nasty mud giant up on the hill with a string tired to his finger so too tug and make the scarecrows move. Kruznic and Lindetheil fire arrows at the foe on the hill. Sven will have none of this, grabs the string and with a mighty tug pulls the giant down off the hill! With the giant on the ground now Kruznic charges and jabs his lance in its heart. Sven runs up and slices its head off with his war axe claiming the head as a trophy. The party returns to Oleg’s.

When they return, the party notices a strange looking human sitting next to a goblin servant at the campfire. Caleesee walks up and introduces herself. She then notices his freakish looking face, snake eyes and bronze hair. He has a large backpack on his back that has tons of smoking viels. He introduces himself as Moody and as an alcemist that can make them things to purchase. He also offers to sell us anything else that we need and for a discount. Kruznic buys a cure light wounds. Moody also tells us anything he doesn’t have he can get for us. The party makes him a list and has Hylaex draw up a contract for monthly supplies to be delievered at Oleg’s post.

The next day, the party goes out to explore east of Oleg’s and comes across a log cabin. Sven and Lindetheil sneak up and peak into the cabin. Inside the cabin lives an old man named Bocan that the party soon believe to be crazy. He told us of how he wanted desperately to kill his brother because his brother chopped his finger off. The party tries to have a sane talk with Bocan but that seems impossiable. Confused by visitors, Bocan hands Sven an anti-toxin potion and the barbarian pockets it. The party moves on.

While walking through the woods, Kruznic notices a trail of clothes that look like they belong to a nobleman. He notices very quickly that they are his. He follows the clothes trail and finds that some are all the way up a tree. He climbs the tree in attempt to retrieve his clothes. While in the tree, Kruznic sees a fairy dragon appear and use his breath weapon. Kruznic begins to giggle uncontrollably. The fairy dragon then takes his underwear from a higher branch and dissapears. When Kruznic comes down from the tree, he notices his underwear are now on top of his horse’s head and his horse is now walking in circles. For the remainder of the day, Kruznic’s horse remains high and wonders off the trail without being told to. Caleesee and Sven try to bribe the dragon to come out, but nothing happens.

The party then hears the sound of a grizzly bear. Then, the party sees a brown bunny coming towards them making grizzly bear notices. Lindetheil then notices her saddle has came unbutton. Lindetheil then notices several sets of horse tracks and begins to follow them. After awhile they dissapear completely. Lindetheil and Caleesee cast detect magic and learn that it happened because of some magic they both do not understand.

Up the road ahead, they hear the sounds of a woman screaming for help and wolves howling. We see a cave and on the outside of the cave are snarling wolves. From the inside of the cave we is heard more screaming. As Kruznic approaches the cave onhis mount, the wolves run. He tells the person in the cave to come out and that it is safe now. When they come out he sees that the woman was no woman, but a huge dire wolf. The wolves that had ran away return and the party can see clearly that this was a trap.

Kruznic charges one of the dire wolves and jabs his lance through its chest. One of the wolves attempted to bite Kruznic and misses. The other one standing next to it, bit Kruznic’s horse and it pulled it quickly to the ground. Lindetheil attempts to shoot and misses. One of the other wolves bit Caleesee and Lindetheil’s bager. Sven runs up in berzerk fury and engages the dire wolves with his war ax. Sven gets bitten by one of the dire wolves in return. Lindetheil’s bager tears one of the wolf’s face off. Sven got bitten once again. Sven grapped the wolf and headbutted him in the face, bashing the wolf’s face in. Kruznic jumps fearlessly past one wolf that was attacking and run towards the wolf that was attacking his horse and slices it in half. The remaining wolf tries to flee and Kruznic shoots it.

Caleesee knows from her knowledge that these wolves were worgs. Worg are very large, intellegent and a daemonic version of the wolf. She knows Sven is in no danger of becoming a werewolf, but decides to see what Kruznic is gonna do. Kruznic quickly rushes the party to Oleg’s to save Sven from a horrible fate. Sven has no worries, the wound was healed and he has no idea what the big fuss is about? When they arrive at Oleg’s Kruznic rushes to Jared to see if he can cure werewolf bites. Jared explains that he can’t help. Kruznic begins to ask if there is someone in the next town that can help and asks how long would it take to get there. Seeing that Kruznic is frantic, Caleesee tells him the truth and has a good laugh.

The party heads to explores more of the land. Lindetheil’s horse falls in a hole, she jumps off the horse before it falls. She falls to the the ground immediately, unable to move because she is now entangled in a spider web. While lying next to the pit, she looks down the pit and sees nothing but spider webs and bones. Kruznic rides over to save her, becoming slowed by the spider web while trying to get there. The rest of the party can see that the web surrounds the hole. Sven looks for spider tracks. He ends up finding some older tracks and he notices some leading in a different direction. Sven continues to keep watch on where the tracks led to. Suddenly, a spider appears by Kruznic and Lindetheil. Another appears next to Hylex and one more comes up next to Sven. After the spiders bite a few party members, they jump back inside their pit that is ten feet deep. The spiders then attack Sven and Kruznic. They both become posioned from the spider and begins to loose their strength rather quickly. Sven throws spear down the hole and misses. Lindetheil shoots her bow and misses also. She also sends a pet bager to protect Caleesee. Kruznic continues to be posioned. He gets off his horse and tries to hit the spider with his lance and misses. Caleesee heals Kruznic some. Garin shoots one of the spiders causing it to explode. Sven hits another one of the spiders with his axe and continues to be posioned. Lindetheil tries to shoot a nearby spider and she misses. One of spiders jumps out and tries to bite Kruznic in the the nuts and misses. Berzerking, Sven throws down his shield, takes a hand axe in his free hand and jumps down into the spider hole striking the spider below with two sxes turning it into giant spider goo. Garin shoots the last one and it explodes also. The party heads back to Oleg’s.

The party reties back to Oleg’s Trading Post to heal posioned wounds. Later that evening it is discovered that Oleg is very angry. It turns out that Sven and Svetlana had attempted to find a private spot to sleep with one another and are caught in the act by an enraged Oleg. Sven and Oleg had words as Sven kept pushing the man down into the mud when he tried to repeatedly attack him. Svetlana tells Oleg she wants to be with Sven instead of him and Oleg stomps off in anger.

Kruznic pulls Sven to the side. Kruznic told him that Oleg’s wife is not the right women for him to be sleeping with since it would be nice for us to be friends with Oleg. Sven tells Kruznic that Svetlana is a Northwoman and does not deserve to be with a weak man like Oleg. Turns out this is not the only time that Kruznic has fussed at Sven for this. Kruznic has walked in on Svetlana and Sven awhile back and he already talk to him.

When they return Oleg had kicked Svetlana out. Kruznic then talks to Svetlana to see what she wants to do. She tells him she would like to follow Sven around. He tries to persuade her to work things out with Oleg. She refuses and tells him that she wants to follow Sven. Kruznic tries to persuade Oleg to keep Sventlana here to work and he tells him that she can find him love. Kruznic and Hylex try to “whore off” Caleesee to Oleg.

Sven notices Hylex casting something on Svetlana as Sven throws an axe in between Hylex’s legs to show him he notices what he is doing. Sven realizes the party needs to feel the situation out themselves and does not interfer when Hylex pulls Svetlana over to talk while under his charm spell. Hylex discovers Svetlana married Oleg in an arranged marriage and she does not love him. Hylex then talks to Sven about her coming with us and Sven agrees she is not coming with them and will find a place for her to stay. Kruznic speaks to Oleg again and convinces him to allow Svetlana to stay and work at the trading post albeit they will stay out of each other’s way.

Aleesha, (Kruznic’s girl) show up and they have a conversation about Svetlana and Oleg. Aleesha decides she doesn’t care for Sven because of his actions. They then began to discuss Kruznic’s background. He pulls out a elven blade that was a graduation gift when he graduated from Order of the Sheild of Restov. Lindethiel asks to see it and then tosses it on the table and storms off telling him " So this is where your money went.". Hylex then asks Lindetheil what she is angry about. She explains that a blade like that is only supposed to be given to a elven son from his father, not to a flilthy half elf. As she thinks about it she also remembers that the crest on the blade that Kruznic had is her family crest. Hylex connects the dots and figures out that Kruznic is probably her half brother. Lindetheil is sickened by the thought of a affair between her dad and a human. She feels her dad could of waited till she bore a son, instead of wasting it on a bastard.

A old smelly drunk hits on Caleesee and Hylex and Garin makes jokes about her saying “she charges too much.” She gets irritated and punches them both. Aleesha and Kruznic head out on a hunt.

The captives are tasked with building an additional courtyard for the trading post. It will be surrounded with a log wall then opened to the rest of the post by removing the adjoining old wall. Kruznic takes responsibility for the captives and their work, he thinks the work will help ‘reform’ them from their criminal ways.

Jon, the captured bandit, began to once again trying to lead the party to the bandit incampment. By leading us, I mean after walking us around in circles and giving us nothing more than “It was next to a river.” and " I know it’s somewhere in the woods….on the border or forrest and plains.". Finally, Lindetheil noticed some horse tracks on the edge of the Thorn River and we followed them to a bandit imcampment.

Garin and Sven scouted ahead, as the rest of the party followed behind. Failing to properly hide themselves, the bandit standing in the guard tower began to fire shots at Sven and Garin (causing Sven to become wounded) Kruznic, shoots him down with his bow and arrow and Sven downs another with a throwing axe.

They observe the camp site only to see six bandits and one female leader. Two bandits are next to a fire, two more are next to a nearby tent, the leader stood several feet from the party and the last two bandits stood behind her. Lindetheil fires some arrows at the first two bandits next to fire and Sven throws his axe at one of them and charges in berzerk rage. Garin stands behind the party and begins to fire shots at the leader. Kruznic makes his way towards the leader and knocks her unconsicous, just as she is on the brink of dying. The two bandits next to the camp flee and are chased by Sven, still in berzerker lust, whom overtakes them in the woods and chops them dead. The remaining bandits surround Kruznic and the rest of the party surrounded them. The bandits dropped their weapons and surrender. The party immediately tied up the surrendering bandits and the unconsious leader.

The bandits are interrogated, they are eager to talk to save their lives, except for the leader. The bandits claim that a bandit lord by the name of ‘The Stag Lord’ is planning to take over the region with his bandits. They claim he is a mountain of a man, drinks like a fish and say he always wears a mask that makes some bandits believe it is his real face. The Stag Lord’s fortress is said to be further south through the wilderness and near a lake.

The party decides to spend the night in the bandit imcampment. Hylex makes rabbit stew with the rabbit Lindetheil’s pet caught. Lindetheil and Kruznic take guard in the watch tower. The rest of the party makes camp and lays down for the night. Hylex is awoken in the middle of the night to see his backpack has rollen into a nearby mud puddle. He finds out by picking up his book bag that it is frozen solid. He sees a small fairly walk out his bookbag. He then tries to speak to the fairy and it runs off in the woods. He then sees dancing lights appear in front of him and Lindetheil sees a devark (ghost of a suffered child) standing about fifteen feet away from Hylex. Suddenly, moans can be heard from the middle of the incampment and the noise wakes the party. As, Caleesee walks out of her tent the devark heads towards her. Garin pulls out his gun and shots it. The devark explodes in between Caleesee and Hylex, giving them both the babonic plague.

The next day, the party attempts to get information from the female bandit leader. She makes fun of Sven and the barbarian takes offense at a woman insulting his prowess. Sven attempts to fling a throwing axe at her. He misses and hits Caleesee instead. Sven takes another swing at the bandit leader (Caleesee moves away quickly) and kills her with a throwing hammer to the face, executing the leader in a fit of anger. After the party decides to bring the other two bandits with them to Oleg’s Trading Post. On the way there, while walking through the woods Lindetheil and Caleesee gets hit with a bee hive. Mischievious fairies strike again, these appear to be blue-skinned goblins known as Mites. Ignoring it, they keep riding, albeit faster.

When the party arrives at Oleg’s, they are greeted by several militas and a Sargent Keston Garris. Kruznic updated him on the party’s progress and on his plan to make the captured bandits repay their dept to society. Keston asks if the party has came across a guy named Fragen Sneed and then explains their is a bounty out for him for killing a merchant leading of a caravan that Keston was guarding. Fragen is wanted dead or alive and Kruznic promises to keep a look out for him. The party will recieve weapons if he is found.

Hylex sees a guy at Oleg’s and reconizes him as Jerod Coven, a guy who is form the Nomaria and that he is a priest. He worships Aristotle and has a neutral alignment. Hylex remembers hearing that Jerod was a town near North Issia and he was convinced that a guy who lived in town was a werewolf and had him lynched. Turns out the guy was innocent and it was a dire wolf doing all the killing in the town. Hylex asks Jerod to cure him and Caleesee. He agrees, but asks for a favor in return. He asks that we try to find a temple of his god that is located in the woods and explore it because he had lost it’s location. Hylex gives him his word and they are healed.

Later that night, the party treats themselves to a nice meal. Little did the party realize at the time but Sven had been missing for most of the earlier evening … Svetlana was also absent. Kruznic buys the captured bandits some food and sits at the bar to enjoy his meal. A gorgeous red headed girl, named Aleesha sits down next to him. Kruznic learns she is a merchant and that she is only here to look for a few things to buy. She ask him several questions about himself and they head to bed. Being that there a very few beds, Kruznic gives her his bed and sleeps on the floor next to her bed. The next morning, he finds her gone and the scarf that she was wearing the following night laying across his chest when he wakes up.

We began using our new map to explore the lands. Our captured bandit, Jon, from the combat at Oleg’s Trading Post when we ambushed the bandits starts to lead us to where he believes the bandit camp is located. Traveling through the woods, we came across a traveler. Wind approachs the traveler and begins to question him about the location of a bandit camp, offering him 30g to lead us there. Wind motioned for the party to come to him. Meanwhile, those pesky fairies unattached Garin’s dogs from his dog sled. Garin and Sven stay behind to attach the dogs back to the sled. The party rides to Wind on their horses. Hylex, the bard notices immediately that the traveler is hiding something. Kruznic questions him about what is hiding and he admits that he is a reformed bandit. Hylex senses his motive once again and picks up that the traverler is nervous about something. Kruznic and Wind continue questioning him about the wereabouts of a bandit camp. Wind then tries to haggle with him some more. He refuses and replies “Fuck you” to Kruznic. Kruznic tramples him with his horse and proceeds to arrest him. Hylex then tries to intimidate him, trying to persuade him to lead us to bandits. The traveler replies with yet another “Fuck you” and Kruznic jabs him in the eye with his lance. Wind is very upset with the events and demands a trial to put Kruznic to death for the killing of an innocent. He looks to the party for their thoughts on it.

( The following occured as email RP ):

Kruznic: “Since we are all supposed to be working together as a group, the Captain of the Guard will no longer perform executions unless more the half of the group sees it for the better good and lawful. Sorry if i have seemed a little agressive with the laws, i guess we need to come to the understanding that sometimes that laws can mean different interpetaions to other people, we will be nobles in this land soon enough and it will be up to us to govern and punish how we see fit to better run the lands. So i am sorrry for taking matters into my own hands tonight and i ask fellow comrades for forgivness, we need to all act more like the nobles we will one day be instead of ruthless dictators, other wise we will never rule with love but only fear, and a kingdom run with fear will never have a great era. remeber God, King, family, friends, the people, then money.”

Garen: “I agree we need to be a council of one mind and voice when we come across those we are to punish, and if only 50% of the group agrees and the other 50% disagree then more deliberation needs to take place, so that it’s a democracy and not a dictatorship like tonight’s example, or else we aren’t any better than those we punish. Today’s example of how one can interpret the law, pass judgement of the law, and execute the law by interpreting it in their own mind and not in unison brings up a very good point of how when we let our emotions take control of us how we can act on our own accord and alienate ourselves from our fellow adventures. So Kruznic, my friend and fellow adventurer, I forgive you of your hasty actions because of your rash thinking that drove you to do what you did. Now we all have done things at one point that we may not be proud of, but like you’ve always said everyone can be given a second chance, I agree as I am doing with you in this matter and what’s makes you 100% different those the majority of the bandits we have and will come across is that you’ve recognized your wrong doings and have sought us out seeking redemption for your actions, but remember we have the tools and means to know if someone is lying to get out of an execution and letting that party off because of simply thinking everyone can be redeemed is foolish thinking, because a bandit who lies, steals, rapes, murders, etc will say anything, lie, to get away so that they can do so again, but if we use our tools together and find out that they are telling the truth then by all means we should try and redeem and accept them without passing judgement on them in our hearts and minds. So my friend, from me to you, all is forgiven and you have redeemed yourself in my eyes. Welcome back!”

Wind: “I believe a full court needs to be held to judge his sincerity or guilt in the matter of the massacre of an innocent, helpless man that was no threat and just trying to earn a living in this cruel world. A cruel world made worse by Kruznic actions, giving aid to the bandits by murdering our only real lead as to their location. A location he helped covered up, just when Wind was successfuly negotiating to receive that location. Wind believes any wrong doing and murder the bandits have done over the last few days is at the help of Kruznic, and he should be held accountable as an accomplice. Let’s go back to Oleg’s and have a proper trial.”

Hylex: “If the court is to be held the entire party will be on trial. We are just as guilty for this mans execution. The Captain did exactly what he was supposed to do, he carried out an execution for adding the bandits and did so by giving multiple chances for intervention or redemption. The Captain asked twice for assistance in restraining the man with Calessee and Loxely being the only ones to repond by saying they would not touch the prisoneer. I myself didnt want to touch or go near him so I tried to convience him to be truthful in the information he was giving, he was not and he would not yield to the Captain, so the sentence was just. Captain Kruznic, after hearing Wind’s attempt to rid you of the party, I am certain he is trying to gain control over the group with outlandish claims because he fears you and the rank you carry, I will gladly accompany you back to Restov with any one else who wants to go to reform a group that will explore a new sector. You only decide to call it a crime after the Captain apologized for being too stern. Captain no apology is needed, you served the Gaurd and you King well.”

Lindethiel(Melody): “I dont know much in the way of foreign laws but I can say that we all..including you wizard…stood by and did nothing when kruznic asked for assisstance in securing this man and taking him back to Olegs. No trial is needed. The only thing I see as needing question on is your want and need for this power and control over people in this group. If I remember correctly, the bard was the one who put this group together, so why dont we let him and the captain lead for now at least. I have more faith in a man of honor than in a man of wanting power. Power leads to things if evil as I have seen. No good can come from you leading right now.”

Caleesee: “Before I say what I need to I will say that I am not faulting anyone. I believe that Kruznic truly thought that the traveler was hiding something other than him just being a recovered bandit. I also believe there was a misunderstanding in the party and that Kruznic was looking out for the good of the party. I do not believe a trial is nessesary in this case. Kruznic is sorry for what he has done and he apologized to the group. If it was not for the misunderstanding he would not have taken that action towards the situation. From what I see so far, he is a firm believer of the law and he would not have done it if it was not for the misunderstanding. I am not faulting the bard though……so there is my vote. Wind I beg of you to accept his apology and continue on our journey to rid these lands of bandits and make it our own. Please lets move on.”

Wind: " As we gather new information I am changing the search to meet this new information. I have been trying multiple ways to get the information, one was talking to the man Kruznic slaughtered right before he gave us the information, the other is trying to make contact with the “little folk”. To quote a very popular author in my homelands “the little folk are everywhere, and when I need information they are the best there are”. I have not seen anyone else, even Hailex, trying to gather information or make suggestions about which way to go. If Hailex has some information that he isn’t sharing or thinks relevant to finding the bandits now would be the time to speak up.I tried to intervene to a point, but I did not see any reason to kill an innocent person on the side of the road so I didn’t think Kruznic would really kill him. Wind thought it was a negotiating tactic like good cop bad cop, or in the colloquial good town guard/bad town guard. Wind has not known Kruznic long enough to know that he wasn’t just making an idle threat, especially after letting one of the bandits from Oleg’s live. Considering this guy was missing a hand, Wind considered him a reformed bandit and as such not a threat to the party, especially when he was going to sell the information of the bandit base allowing us to go directly there and not have to wonder around in the wood searching for them.
Calessee did you not intervene because you weren’t sure which way to go, thought the guy was guilty, or didn’t think he was actually going to kill him, or other? Was anyone else up there besides Wind, Calessee, Kruznic or Hailex? If you were there which way were you leaning?
Wind was carrying on a conversation and was using his own money to try to purchase the information but was stopped by someone that seemed all to eager to keep that information hidden. Kruznic executed all but the most weak and stupid of the bandits, including the one that was the leader and actually knew the way back, even after the lead bandit offered to take us there. That one Wind overlooked just thinking Kruznic was caught up in the moment, but this latest murder was cold hearted and helped the bandits more than anything else.
If Haylex thinks that allowing Kruznic to get away with murder without even a trial, and running back to Restov is the way to go, they should depart. Wind will not abandon these people that need our help or forget his promise to clean out this portion of the Riverlands, any member of the party who still thinks these bandits need to be hunted down and brought to justice are more than welcome and needed to stay and stand up for what is right. Wind hopes the rest of the party sees the honor in what we are doing and decides to stay to fight the good fight and help out our new friend Oleg and his wife Svetlana."

Hylex “Melody I do appreciate the confidence in my abilities but it was a group effort between myself and Wind to pull the party together. I dont intend to lead or at least I wasnt trying to but I will not allow party members to be wrongly accused of murder. The man was being dishonest and had ample time to chage course, he did not and the correct judgement was dealt. My main concern is the motive behind Wind’s accusations that this man was somehow innocent. If he had priveledged information then he should have shared it, I knew the man was being dishonest and let the party know, Wind should have done the same if he thought differently. This is why I am concerened. It seems aweful curious that it took so long to speak up and he claims him innocent at that.
You speaking in 3rd pearson is odd. I said right off the bat, the man was being dishonest. But back to the execution, I wasnt going to stop Kruznic as the judgement was just. You seem to have issue with trusting every single person we come across. He was not being honest and was warned the consequences of his actions multiple time. He chose his fate.”

Lindetheil (Melody): “Well then we can take a vote on whether or not it was unjust. I vote it was okay. No wrong doing.”

Hylex “No wrong done.”

Sven points towards John the Captive with his axe as he proclaims “If it was not for this slave misleading us in the first place we wouldn’t be having these arguements better meant for henpicking old women! I say give me a few minutes with this slave and he will painfully understand the errors of failing his masters!”

Hylex “Sven he honestly thought he was leading us in the correct direction, we know now that Geography is not his strong suit. We will not be making the same mistake again.”

Sven: “Bah! You put to much faith in a slave Little Buddy.”

Sven steps over to John the Captive and punches him hard across the face knocking him down with a brusied jaw.

Sven winds up and stepsover to John the Captive and punches him hard across the face knocking him down with a brusied jaw.

Hylex “Sven he…….. (pop)…….nevermind.”

Lindetheil “Wind, you are going to be leaving us would you please give us our map that we all helped pay for???”

( The following happened early in game 3 ):

Wind hands map to party and rides off quickly.

Lindetheil studies the map carefully and notices within a few moments that it was the wrong map. The party comes after Wind and quickly captures him. They take his map, weapons, spell components and his horse. The group discusses what to do with him and the concensous is to let him go at the nearest town. They also refund him his 20g for putting in his share for the map. We walked him to the nearest civilization and let him go.

Introduction:
The Swordlords of Restov announced that they had need of entreprenuers and heroes, they were to meet at a local tavern to find more information. Once there the individuals would form expedition forces to fulfill their charters. At the tavern there were all manner of people and several groups had already almost completely formed, most very large in size. It so happens that this group of adventurers was bestowed with the charter in the Greenbelt. After a short time in Restov the party set out for Nikta’s Crossing, where they caught up with an adventurer known as Maegar Varn.

*Note: Didn’t take any notes when we met at the tavern, so fill in what you remember. I pretty much just started when Wind started gambing with Magar Varn (the guy who offered a spot in his party for Wind and Hylex offering them 1/10 of earnings). *

The next day, after the party was formed at the “Pirates Well” tavern, Lindetheil used her knowledge and predicted that there would be bad weather for at least a few days. Deciding to stick around the tavern for awhile, the party came from there rooms to find Magar Varn gambling and doing quite well. Wind decides to gamble also. The first time, he betted against the house. The second time, it was against Magar. Third time, Magar wanted to make things more interesting by betting for items instead. Wind asks Magar if he has any maps of the area (which he does) and after much deliberation Magar offered Wind a deal. Either pay 100 gold to copy one of the four regions that Magar had maps of or bet 50 to be able to copy it. Wind decided to pay 100 gold (party split the cost) to copy the map of Noman Heights.

*Note: Magar spoke of Breg (a nobleman) that is missing in the greenbelt region.

We come across Oleg’s trading post and hear some sort of pounding noise coming from inside. Wind walks in to find a goblin dressed in half plate that does not seemed too interested in us (his name is Getsthepig). Oleg Leveton was hammering on the roof when Getsthepig called him down. When Oleg comes down he goes into another room. Out of that room comes a russian “mail ordered bride” girl greets us happily offering food and drink, happy that we are here (her name is Svetlana). Oleg (50 something) and Svetlana (28) are together. Hylex shows Oleg the charter that we recieved. Oleg directed Hylex toward Svetlana and Hylex hands the charter to her. She claims that bandits come on the first of the month to rob them calling it taxes. Last time, they stole her ring, threatened to burn down the trading post and kill Svetland. The bandit’s first vist was three months ago. The party immediately sets up a plan to ambush the bandits on the following day.

The party devised a cunning plan to trap the bandits inside the walls and have them surrounded. Thus when the bandits returned to the outpost they all entered by horseback into the courtyard. Oleg greeted them nervously as the bandits demanded their monthly ‘tribute’.

The trap was then sprung, the gate came crashing down by the tug of a rope by Lindetheil. Kruzinic had rigged the gate to do so the day before. Up on the walls Lindetheil, Garien and Calessee stood. In front of the bandits rode out Kruznic on his mount, Wind and Hylex. From the side of the courtyard Sven and Getsthepig (offered to help beat up the badnits) flank the brigands.

As planned Wind throws a spell at the bandits making a few collapse into unconsciousness. Kruznic demands that the bandits surrender but when they refuse he charges a bandit put fails to land a lance blow. From the walls Garien fires his musket but it misfires. Hylex casts a spell and a bandit collapses to the ground laughing uncontrollably! The bandits are surprised but fight back as they have a competent, smartass leader whom proclaims himself a bandit lord. The bandits rally shooting arrows all around, one bandit makes a racial slur against elves and fells Linetheil with an arrow!

The bandit leader demands that everyone surrenders or they will be killed, for they are no match for him. Sven and Getsthepig attack. Sven aims his axe at the bandits as he proclaims, ‘I got your surrender right here!’ before jumping up on a cart with a bandit and cleaving the life from him with his war axe. The battle ensues, Garien attempts some jumping maneuver from the wall but instead falls straight down impacting the hard ground. Kruznic engages more bandits, as does Getsthepig. Hylex sings a song to rally his friends.

Sven aims his axe at the next bandit and proclaims, ‘Do you want my surrender too!?’, before leaping over and cleaving him dead. The bandits find themselves losing and the remainder surrender to the party when Kruznic tells them to do so. The first bandit to surrender is spared, taken under Kruznic’s watch. The rest are executed by the sword, by Kruznic’s hand. Except for the leader whom pissed everyone off as the party tried to interrogate him and is killed by a magic missile to the face.

With the defeat of the bandits they gain information from Jon the Captive about where the bandit camp is. Also gained is a sizable amount of bows, arrows, equipment and about eight horses. Oleg and Svetlana are very grateful that the party rid them of the bandit thugs and offer them a permanent place to stay in the post’s cramped lodging cabin.